Introducing the AWS Credits Detail Page

In this post, we are introducing the credits detail page in the AWS Billing and Cost Management console with public API and Amazon Q integration, providing customers one place to see and control their credits.

Managing AWS credits at scale is hard. As organizations grow on AWS, credits can accumulate from multiple programs. Tracking balances, tracing consumption, and controlling allocation grow increasingly complex. Today, we are announcing the credits detail page in the AWS Billing and Cost Management console with public API and Amazon Q integration, giving customers one place to see and control every credit. In this post, we’ll show you how to view credit metadata and application history, configure credit-level sharing to align with your business structure, and pause or activate credits to control when they’re consumed.

The Challenge: Credit Management at Scale

As organizations grow on AWS, credit management needs grow with them. Customers told us about several current limitations:

• Identifying individual credits: When multiple credits come from the same program, distinguishing between them requires customers to maintain additional tracking outside of AWS.
• Tracing credit consumption: Understanding which accounts and services consumed a credit involves cross-referencing multiple data sources and building custom reports.
• Keeping up with balances: Customers need credit balance information more frequently than once per month to plan chargebacks and forecast consumption.
• Controlling credit allocation: Credits are shared across all accounts in an organization by default to maximize utilization. Customers have asked for the option to direct specific credits to specific teams or projects when their business structure requires it.
• Controlling credit timing: Credits are applied automatically to maximize utilization. Customers have asked for the ability to pause specific credits and reserve them for future usage.
• Consolidating credit information: Teams managing credits across multiple programs maintain their own spreadsheets and tracking systems to create a unified view.

Introducing the Credits Detail Page: See and Control Every Credit

The credits detail page addresses these challenges by providing credit visibility and credit sharing controls in one place.

View and Track: Credit Metadata and Application History

Choose any credit from the Credits page to see its full details:

• Credit metadata: Credit name, Credit ID, type, status, original amount, remaining balance, estimated balance, start date, expiration date, applicable services, and owner account ID
• Monthly application history: A breakdown showing how much credit was applied per linked account, service, and product code for each month
• 24-hour balance refresh: Estimated remaining balances update every 24 hours, replacing the previous monthly cadence

The monthly application history table answers the question customers have asked most frequently: which accounts and services consumed each credit. This supports internal chargeback processes, financial close, and consumption planning directly from the console.

Control: Credit-Level Sharing Flexibility

From the Sharing preferences tab in the credits detail page, customers can manage how each credit is consumed:

• Credit-level sharing: Restricts credit consumption to accounts within your defined group of accounts. You can use Cost Categories to create and manage these groups. A given credit will only apply to usage from accounts that belong to the specified group, ensuring alignment with your intended allocation. This is useful for scenarios where funding boundaries, regulatory requirements, or project-specific allocation require that credits stay within a defined set of accounts.
• Activate and pause: Lets you turn individual credits on or off. Active credits are applied on eligible charges. Paused credits are not applied until reactivated. Use this to reserve credits for future usage or purchases.

Key Benefits

• Alignment with business structure: Use Cost Categories that mirror your organizational structure of business needs to control credit allocation by business unit, cost center, project, region, or funding source.
• Control when credits are consumed: Pause credits to reserve them for future purchases or prevent unintended consumption, and reactivate when ready.
• Reusable grouping: Each credit is configured individually, but the Cost Category rules used for grouping are reusable across credits and integrated with other cost management tools like Cost Explorer, AWS Budgets, Cost and Usage Reports, and AWS Billing Conductor.

Real-World Use Cases

This feature is valuable for several types of organizations:

• Enterprises with multiple business units: Each division can receive credits aligned with their programs and funding sources, supporting accurate profit and loss reporting without manual reallocation.
• Public sector and educational institutions: Grant-funded credits can be restricted to approved accounts, maintaining compliance with funding agency requirements.
• Multinational companies: Credits can be directed to accounts within specific geographies to meet tax, legal, or regulatory boundaries.

Getting Started

The credits detail page is available now in the AWS Billing and Cost Management console for AWS customers.

1. Navigate to the Credits page in the AWS Billing and Cost Management console
2. Choose an individual credit to open the credits detail page, where you can view credit metadata and monthly application history
3. Configure credit-level sharing preferences from the payer account using Cost Categories to restrict credit consumption to specific account groups.
4. Access credit data programmatically through public APIs, or ask questions about your credits in natural language through Amazon Q (read-only)

Credit sharing preferences are managed through the console and public APIs.

Learn More

Credits in the AWS Billing and Cost Management console
Credit-level sharing documentation
Cost Categories documentation
Public APIs for credit data