AWS Knowledge
Understanding AWS Cost and Usage Reports 2025
Piyush Kalra
Jan 2, 2025
Cloud cost management is a serious matter for startups in 2025. The demand for cloud computing has increased so much that it is essential to have AWS Cost and Usage Reports as a tool to maintain your budget. This guide targets Cloud geeks, finance experts, and anyone else struggling with their Amazon Web Services bill.
We’ll break down why keeping an eye on cloud costs is so important, how CUR makes AWS billing data easier to understand, and how you can use it to save big – think cutting costs with smart optimizations. By the end of this guide, you’ll have simple, actionable tips to start managing your AWS expenses like a pro.
What Are AWS Cost and Usage Reports?
(Image source: AWS)
AWS provides detailed customizable reporting tools known as AWS Cost and Usage Reports that enable one to keep track of all cloud costs. For example, CUR summarizes AWS's billing information, usage data, and resource details into one report, which is stored automatically in an Amazon S3 bucket.
Key Highlights of AWS CUR:
Customisable Reporting: Companies can customize data in terms of costs, regions, services and time (hourly, daily, monthly).
Detailed Cost Segmentation: This offers a detailed view of cost allocation categories such as resource tags and AWS services.
Integration Ready: This is because the program effortlessly integrates with Amazon Redshift, Athena or QuickSight for deeper data analysis.
Frequent Updates: These reports are refreshed up to three times a day, ensuring your information is accurate and current.
Why Businesses Need to Monitor AWS Costs
Even though businesses can scale their cloud usage, without effective cost management, expenditures will rise beyond control. AWS costs make up a large chunk of IT budgets, hence calling for exact monitoring.
Challenges Without Monitoring:
Lack of Visibility: Unused services or those with too much capacity may eat into your budget undetected.
Budget Inflation: The absence of timely insights leads to unwarranted spending.
Complex Billing Structures: Pricing in AWS is enigmatic because it has numerous models with dynamic components like on-demand resources and reserved instances that are only understandable through tools.
Understanding AWS Pricing Models
AWS pricing may initially seem complex, but understanding it simplifies cost management and effective planning. Instead of using a flat-rate method, AWS has various charge patterns tailored to fit your needs. Here is how it works:
AWS Pricing Models Explained:
Pay-As-You-Go (e.g., Amazon EC2, S3): You only pay for what you use without any upfront costs or long-term commitments. This model is optimal for sporadic workloads or projects that undergo frequent scaling.
Reserved Instances and Savings Plans (e.g., DynamoDB): In case of predictable workloads, you can decide on utilizing specific resources for an extended period, which could be as short as one year or extend up to three years, in respect of which rates are significantly reduced. This strategy also cuts down costs associated with steady long-term usage.
Provisioned Resources (e.g., RDS, EBS): Under this model, you are charged for the capacity that has been pre-allocated, regardless of whether it is fully utilized or not. It works best when applications require certain performance guarantees during certain periods.
Common AWS Cost Misconceptions
There are common myths that lead to surprise bills from AWS. Here’s what you should know.
Myth 1: AWS Bills Are So Easy to Understand
Reality: AWS bills may be highly complicated, containing hundreds of line items reflecting hourly usage, data transfers, and discounted rates.
Myth 2: Reserved Instances Always Save Money
Reality: Reserved instances are beneficial only when they closely match your long-term usage; otherwise, they might be more expensive than pay-as-you-go models.
Myth 3: We Can Ignore Unused Resources.
Reality: Budgets may suffer from idle resources such as EC2 instances and underutilized storage.
How AWS Cost and Usage Reports Work
AWS CUR makes the process of managing your AWS bill easier. Here’s how to get started and what is contained in the reports.
What Does CUR Include?
Charges: Detailed information about individual service costs.
Usage Metrics: This will break down each service usage at a resource level.
Custom Tags: It is used to add metadata, such as the name of the project or department so that costs are more accurately allocated.
Time Granularity Options:
Hourly reporting for micro-level tracking.
Daily summaries for routine checks.
Monthly aggregates for long-term trends.
AWS CUR has automated production to the S3 bucket; hence, it is easy to grab or get data from there.
Steps to Create an AWS Cost & Usage Report
Step 1: Accessing the Report
Log in to your AWS account: Billing and Cost Management Console.
Navigate to the Cost Explorer saved Reports section and select Create New Report.
Select Cost and Usage (recommended) and click on Create Report.
In Additional Report Details, choose the Include resource IDs option to add resource IDs to your report. (optional)
Step 2: Configure Report Settings
In Data refresh settings, specify if you want the report to refresh when AWS applies credits, support fees, or refunds, then select Next.
In the S3 bucket, select Configure to specify where the report will be stored.
Choose an existing bucket from the drop-down or create a new one by specifying its name and region. Click Next.
Review the displayed bucket policy, confirm it, and select Save.
Step 3: Finalize Report Details
In the Report path prefix, enter a path prefix for your report’s name.
Select the Time granularity (hourly, daily, or monthly).
Choose the Report versioning option to either overwrite previous versions or keep all versions.
In Enable report data integration, decide if you want to integrate your report with Amazon QuickSight, Redshift, or Athena.
Step 4: Review and Complete
Review your report settings and select save to report library to finalize the setup.
Best Practices for AWS Cost Management - Explained
Effectively managing AWS costs requires structured strategies to make the most of the AWS Cost and Usage Report. Here's how each practice helps:
Use Tags Strategically
Tags are labels you can attach to your AWS resources to help categorise and account for costs more effectively. For instance, using tags such as “Environment = Test” or “Project = Q1 Marketing” will allow expenses to be grouped by teams, projects, or usage cases, making it easy to see where your cloud budget went.
Monitor Budgets Proactively
By integrating AWS CUR with AWS Budgets, you can set spending thresholds and get alerts when costs approach these limits. Therefore, at all times, there is a danger of overspending; thus, corrections can be made before the situation goes out of control.
Compare Usage Trends
Before diving into the reasons for this, let us briefly analyse these usage trends. This will help you recognize some patterns that will make it possible to use cloud resources efficiently. For instance, using past statistics from CUR and future projections can enable informed decisions on scaling up or down your resources according to budget constraints and long-term goals.
Cut AWS Costs with Pump
Pump uses AI to automate cost optimization by reviewing your AWS usage to secure discounts and efficient capacity – no expertise is required. It also negotiates better rates through group buying that can save small start-ups up to 60%. You will have complete visibility of your cloud spending with real-time tracking costing and detailed reports at zero upfront costs.
Tools to Enhance AWS CUR Analysis
Using CUR is much more efficient when it is combined with other tools:
AWS Cost Explorer: Great for showing costs and usage patterns graphically.
Amazon QuickSight: It transforms data from the CUR into powerful BI dashboards.
Conclusion
AWS Cost and Usage Reports offer unmatched insights into your cloud spending – an essential tool for staying financially agile in 2025. Businesses can discover powerful cost-saving opportunities by mastering CUR, analyzing detailed usage data, and following best practices.
Take the First Step: Start creating your AWS CUR today to unlock the full potential of your data. But why stop there? With Pump, you can take your cost optimization to the next level. Pump helps businesses save on AWS services, ensuring you don’t just manage costs – you maximize value. Empower your organization’s growth while keeping expenses in check.
