AWS Billing and Cost Management

AWS Billing and Cost Management provides a suite of tools to simplify cloud spending and billing. It’s organized into three main areas: billing, cost management, and Savings.

AWS Billing focuses on payment automation, making it easier to manage invoices and streamline payment processes. Meanwhile, AWS Cost Management helps optimize resource allocation, aiming to maximize the value of your cloud investment by minimizing unnecessary expenses. Usage reports enhance visibility, offering detailed insights into your cloud resource consumption.

Together, these features help you control and optimize AWS spending effectively.
 

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What is the AWS Billing Console?

The AWS Billing Console is a feature within the AWS Billing and Cost Management console that enables users to view monthly charges, manage invoices, and customize billing preferences for tax and payment options.

  • Bills: Download invoices and detailed billing data to understand charges.
  • Purchase Orders: Create and manage orders to align with organizational procurement.
  • Payments: Track outstanding balances and payment history.
  • Payment Profiles: Set up different payment methods for various AWS providers or departments.
  • Credits: Monitor balances and select where to apply for credits.
  • Billing Preferences: Opt for emailed invoices, and manage credit sharing, alerts, and discounts.

AWS Cost Management

Features of AWS Cost Management

  • AWS Cost Explorer: Analyze your cloud spending with detailed dashboards and reports, including Reserved Instances and historical trends for future forecasts.
  • AWS Cost Anomaly Detection: Detect unusual cloud usage early with AI-powered monitoring that notifies you of potential overspending.
  • AWS Budgets: Set and track cloud budgets, and get alerts or actions when thresholds are reached.
  • AWS Savings Plans: Save up to 70% by committing to reserved compute capacity.
  • Right-Sizing Recommendations: Optimize resources by identifying underused instances, reducing costs.

Savings and Commitments

AWS Billing and Cost Management also helps lower your AWS bill by optimizing resource use and applying flexible pricing models.

  • AWS Cost Optimization Hub: Discover savings opportunities with custom recommendations, like deleting unused resources, rightsizing, and leveraging Savings Plans or reservations.
  • Savings Plans: Access discounted rates over on-demand pricing through flexible plans. Manage inventory, review purchase suggestions, and monitor usage.
  • Reservations: Reserve capacity for services like EC2, RDS, Redshift, and DynamoDB at reduced rates, ideal for predictable workloads.

How CloudKeeper can help in AWS Billing and Cost Management

CloudKeeper helps companies effectively manage AWS billing and cost management and optimize cloud costs by offering tools and services designed for cost efficiency.

As an AWS Billing Partner and AWS Premier Partner, CloudKeeper AZ offers cloud cost savings, visibility, and expert support - all in one place! We help you access best-in-market discounts at no cost, lock-in, or commitment by leveraging the power of group buying, the scale of spend aggregation, and volume-based discounts.

On top of it, we provide a comprehensive cloud cost visibility platform and proactive support acting as a cloud cost management vertical for your business.

CloudKeeper’s cloud cost visibility platform CloudKeeper Lens provides granular-level visibility into billing and cost utilization with features such as hourly dashboards, RI & Savings Plan Utilization, EC2 & S3 Breakup, EKS cost tracking, Daily Breakup Heatmap, anomaly detection, and more, making it easy for businesses to track spending, understand cost trends, and implement cost-saving commitments.

Our 24*7 Cloud Support and Expert Guidance can take care of all your cloud needs & challenges! With CloudKeeper, companies gain access to hidden savings insights & opportunities, automated rightsizing recommendations, removal of unused resources, and RI/Savings Plan management. This streamlined approach supports budget and cloud cost management, ensuring companies maximize value from their AWS investment.

Take the first step toward effortless AWS billing and cost management — book a call with us today.

Frequently Asked Questions

  • Q1. What is AWS Billing and Cost Management?

    AWS Billing and Cost Management is a suite of tools to help you simplify cloud spending and billing. It includes features for managing invoices, automating payments, optimizing resource allocation, and tracking cloud costs.

  • Q2. What is the AWS Billing Console?

    The AWS Billing Console is where you can view and manage your AWS bills, including downloading invoices, managing payments, and customizing billing preferences.

  • Q3. What are some key features of AWS Cost Management?

    Key features include AWS Cost Explorer, AWS Cost Anomaly Detection, AWS Budgets, AWS Savings Plans, and Right-Sizing Recommendations.

  • Q4. What is the difference between AWS billing and Cost Explorer?

    The key difference between AWS Billing and AWS Cost Explorer lies in their primary focus and functionality:

    AWS Billing

    • Purpose: AWS Billing focuses on payment management, invoice generation, and billing preferences.
    • Features:
      • View and download invoices.
      • Manage payment methods, tax settings, and purchase orders.
      • Track outstanding balances and payment history.
      • Set billing preferences like email invoices or consolidated billing for linked accounts.
    • Audience: Primarily used by finance teams or administrators to handle payments and ensure compliance with procurement processes.

    AWS Cost Explorer

    • Purpose: AWS Cost Explorer focuses on analyzing and visualizing cloud usage and costs to optimize spending.
    • Features:
      • Generate reports to understand usage and cost trends.
      • Analyze costs by service, linked accounts, or usage types.
      • Forecast future spending based on historical data.
      • Identify savings opportunities, such as underused resources or Savings Plans.
    • Audience: Useful for cloud architects, FinOps teams, and business leaders to monitor and optimize cloud costs.

    Summary

    • AWS Billing deals with the administrative aspects of payments and invoices.
    • AWS Cost Explorer provides analytical insights to track and optimize cloud spending.

  • Q5. What are the advantages of billing and cost management on AWS?

    AWS Billing & Cost Management helps you understand and control your cloud spending.

    1. Enhanced Visibility: Provides detailed cloud cost visibility and usage insights, enabling granular tracking across linked accounts.
    2. Cost Optimization: Identifies savings opportunities through tools like AWS Cost Explorer, Savings Plans, and Reserved Instances.
    3. Control and Governance: Enables budget creation, anomaly detection, and proactive alerts to prevent overspending.
    4. Streamlined Billing: Consolidated billing simplifies multi-account management with a unified invoice.

  • Q6. How to optimize AWS billing?

    1. Monitor Usage: Use AWS Cost Explorer for cost breakdowns and trend analysis.
    2. Custom Reports & Dashboards: Create tailored reports and dashboards to track key metrics and monitor spending against budgets.
    3. Utilize Savings Plans and RIs: Commit to discounted rates for predictable workloads.
    4. Implement Right-Sizing: Use recommendations to scale down or terminate underutilized resources.
    5. Leverage Spot Instances: Reduce costs for non-critical workloads by using Spot pricing.
    6. Enable Cost Allocation Tags: Implement a robust tagging strategy to track costs accurately across teams, projects, and applications. Utilize tags for granular cost analysis, showback, and chargeback mechanisms.
    7. Regular Reviews: Conduct regular cost reviews to identify new optimization opportunities.
    8. Use AWS Budgets: Set thresholds and receive notifications for cost and usage limits.

    For a comprehensive approach, consider integrating AWS-native tools with cloud cost optimization solutions like CloudKeeper to enhance automation, better governance and achieve significant savings.

  • Q7. Which feature of AWS billing and Cost Management enables you to view costs across linked accounts and monitor spending on a daily and monthly basis?

    The AWS Cost Explorer of AWS Billing and Cost Management enables you to view costs across linked accounts and monitor spending on a daily, and monthly basis. It provides detailed dashboards and reports to analyze your cloud spending trends, usage patterns, and forecasts for better financial planning. For more granular insights you can opt for tools like CloudKeeper Lens, a comprehensive cloud cost visibility platform that offers features like hourly dashboards, RI & Savings Plan utilization, EKS cost tracking, anomaly detection, heatmaps for daily breakups, and more.

Speak with our advisors to learn how you can take control of your Cloud Cost

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