Question: How can I use Cost Explorer to analyze my spending and usage?

I want to use Cost Explorer to analyze my spending and usage.

Short descriptionWith Cost Explorer, you can do the following:Review charges and usage associated with your account.View and create reports for your cost and usage data.Forecast estimated spending for the next three months.Get recommendations on utilization and coverage of your Reserved Instances (RIs).Get recommendations on utilization and coverage of your Savings Plans.

ResolutionFirst, launch Cost Explorer for your account:Open the Billing and Cost Management console.From the navigation pane, choose Cost Explorer.Choose Launch Cost Explorer.After you launch Cost Explorer, you might need to wait for up to 24 hours for cost and usage data to populate.To view pre-configured reports for your cost and usage data, do the following:Open the AWS Cost Management console.Choose Reports from the navigation pane.Select a report name to analyze your costs.To create custom reports for your cost and usage data, do the following:Open the AWS Cost Management console.Choose Cost Explorer from the navigation pane.Choose New Report and select a report type you want to create.Choose Create Report. Then, save the report for later use by choosing Save as.Here are some common uses for Cost Explorer:Compare your month-to-month costsTo compare your month-to-month costs, use the Monthly costs by service report. By default, the chart displays the five services with the highest costs. However, the table includes cost data for all the services that you used.You can also investigate temporary spikes in your billing by opening the Monthly costs by service report. Then, under Monthly, choose Daily instead.Understand costs for your resources by serviceOpen the Service filter.Select the services that you want to investigate.Choose Apply Filters.For Group by, choose Usage Type.For example, to see how much you're billed for data transfer for Elastic Load Balancing, choose the EC2-ELB service in FILTERS. Then, choose Usage Type for Group by. Then, look for data transfer.View costs by cost allocation tagTo view costs by cost allocation tag, choose Tag for Group by. The Tag option isn't available if you have no cost allocation tags. When you create a new cost allocation tag, you might need to wait up to three days for the tag to appear in Cost Explorer.View unblended cost data for an organizationTo view unblended cost data for member accounts in an organization, select Unblended costs for Show costs as in ADVANCED OPTIONS.View taxes by accountFor Group by, choose Linked account.Open the Service filter, and then choose Tax.View RI utilizationTo view your RI utilization, select Reports from the navigation pane and choose RI Utilization under Report name.View the combined usage of all your purchased RIs in the chart and the utilization of individual RIs in the table.View the utilization of your RIs as the percentage of purchased RI hours in the chart.View the number of RI hours used against the number of RI hours purchased in the table.Select a single RI or a group of RIs in the table to view their respective utilization in the chart.Use the information in the table to track the number of RI hours that you have reserved but did not use.For more information, see RI utilization reports.View RI coverageTo view your RI coverage, select Reports from the navigation pane and choose RI Coverage under Report name.See the number of instance hours covered by your RIs in the chart.Track the number of hours that you have totally used and how many of those are covered by your RIs.View the number of hours covered by RIs against the On Demand hours in the table.Select a single RI or a group of RIs in the table to view their respective coverage in the chart.For more information, see RI coverage reports.View your RI recommendationsTo view your Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) RI recommendations and estimated annual savings, choose Recommendations in the navigation pane. The RI recommendations are provided based on your past EC2 usage.View your Savings Plans recommendationsTo view your Savings Plans recommendations and estimated savings:Open the AWS Cost Management console.Then choose Recommendations, located under Savings Plans in the navigation pane.Use the Recommendation parameters to choose a Savings Plans type. Then, select Recommendation options based on your preferred term length, payment option, and past usage.The Recommendations table provides Monthly On-Demand Spend, Estimated Monthly Spend, Estimated Monthly Savings, and Recommended Savings Plans.Note: It might take up to 24 hours after a Savings Plans purchase for the Savings Plans Recommendations to update.View Savings PlansTo view purchased Savings Plans and when they expire:Open the AWS Cost Management console.Then choose Inventory, located under Savings Plans in the navigation pane.View Savings Plans utilizationTo view your Savings Plans utilization, choose Utilization report, located under Savings Plans in the navigation pane. The Utilization report shows the percentage of your Savings Plans commitments that you are utilizing across your applicable usage.View Savings Plans coverageTo view your Savings Plans coverage, choose Coverage report, located under Savings Plans in the navigation pane. The Coverage report shows how much of your applicable usage was covered by Savings Plans.

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