AWS Cost Explorer
Cost analysis charts
An interface to view, filter, and group AWS costs and usage by service, account, tag, and Region over the past and forecast into the future; includes Savings Plans and Reserved Instance recommendations.
- Cost$ Low
- Difficulty●●●●●
- Costs money when idle?No
- Serverless
- In examsCLF · SAA · SOA
Think of it asLike a spending tracker app that draws charts showing where most of your money went this month.
When to use it
✓ Use it when
You want to quickly answer "where is the money going" and see cost trends.
✗ Avoid it when
Need detailed line-item data to analyze yourself → Cost and Usage Report; need alerts → Budgets.
Common uses
- See which service costs the most this month
- Filter costs by project tag
- Forecast end-of-month costs
What does it cost?
- Pricing model: Viewing in the console is free; API calls are billed per request; enabling hourly/resource-level granular data costs extra.
⚠️ Cost traps
Scripts and third-party tools that call the Cost Explorer API constantly can rack up significant charges.
Related services
SAA-C03 study guide
Cost Explorer is covered in these study modules: