Cost you can explain down to the request that caused it
Billing APIs tell you what a resource cost. They cannot tell you who asked for it, why, or under whose approval. Realm9 sits at the request boundary, so it knows intent — not just tags.
Cost visibility that informs each change
FinOps brings AWS and Azure cost data into Realm9, where teams can explore spend, investigate unusual changes and apply cost thresholds to Terraform plans.
Start with a clear view of connected cloud spend
Enable FinOps on an AWS or Azure connection to see cost trends, account distribution and the services responsible for the largest share of spend.
- Cost trends and service breakdowns for each connected cloud account
- Manual sync when figures need refreshing before the scheduled cost sync
- Cost data shown alongside the environment and workspace context held in Realm9
Answer cost questions with the dimensions your team uses
The cost explorer filters and groups spend by the same connection, environment and organisational details your teams use to manage infrastructure.
- Filter by provider, connection, region, service, environment, namespace, cost center and tags
- Review average daily cost and burn rate alongside the selected period
- Create dashboards from scratch or begin with a template
- Use usage and rightsizing views to review running resources
Investigate unusual spend without losing the context
Statistical anomaly detection compares actual cost with expected cost and records the variance, period and contributing services for review.
- Anomalies categorised as low, medium, high or critical
- Expected and actual cost shown together with the recorded variance
- Contributing services and possible causes available on the anomaly record
- Filter by cloud connection to route investigation to the responsible team
Connection: aws-prod. Routed to @data-platform for review.
Use cost thresholds before infrastructure is applied
When a Terraform policy profile includes Infracost, Realm9 records the estimated monthly cost and increase from the plan, then evaluates the thresholds configured for that profile.
- Estimated monthly cost and increase stored with the Terraform run policy check
- Maximum monthly cost and increase thresholds configured per policy profile
- Advisory or blocking enforcement applied with the rest of the policy checks
- Approval decisions stay with the same run as its cost and security results
The Realm9 edge
Dedicated cost platforms show you spend after it happens. Realm9 ties cost to the same connection, environment and Terraform run your teams already govern — so cost is something you can act on before it exists, not just observe.
| Capability | Realm9 | CloudZero | Vantage |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pre-deployment cost gating | Infracost thresholds evaluated on the Terraform plan itself — blocking or advisory, before anything is provisioned | Post-deployment observability only — spend is visible after it is committed | FinOps-as-code covers budgets/reports, not a plan-time blocking gate |
| Cost tied to the request that caused it | Every dollar traced to the connection, environment and request that generated it — not just a tag | Allocation by customer/feature/team dimension, not the originating request | Grouped by tag, account or service — no request-level attribution |
| Cost + governance in one platform | Cost, policy and approval sit on the same run — one place to see and stop overspend | Standalone cost platform — governance lives in a separate tool | Standalone cost platform — no policy or approval layer |
| Anomaly detection with confidence scoring | Statistical + provider-hybrid detection with severity grading and direct user notification on every flagged anomaly | Anomaly alerts, but routing and ownership are configured separately | Threshold alerts per report — no built-in ownership routing |
| Rightsizing tied to the connection | Usage and rightsizing views tied to the same cloud connection your Terraform runs and cost data already share | Rightsizing shown independent of environment/workspace context | Rightsizing focused on Kubernetes and commitment discounts only |
Sources: CloudZero (cloudzero.com) and Vantage (vantage.sh) product pages, reviewed 2024. Feature availability changes — verify against current vendor docs before quoting externally.
Make cost part of how infrastructure gets approved
FinOps is available on the Ultimate plan and works with Infrastructure Management, so spend is visible after deployment and checked before it.