Category: AWS Cost Explorer

AWS introduced the FinOps Agent (currently in public preview) at FinOps X 2026. FinOps automation is still relatively new, and given the sensitivity around cloud and AI cost management, it’s understandable if you’re hesitant to go all-in on autonomous FinOps right away. In this post, we’ll share our mental model for FinOps automation, the four tiers of automation you can follow, and the four built-in trust levers you can rely on to stay in control as automation scales.

AWS WAF and AWS Shield Advanced provide robust DDoS mitigation and request filtering, but estimating their combined costs can be complex. This guide helps you understand the pricing components so you can protect your web applications while keeping spend predictable.

Implementing a FinOps weekly checkpoint is a proactive approach to catch spend trends sooner and generates more meaningful insights for your monthly variance analysis. Gathering variance context throughout the month leads to a clearer, more impactful analysis. This weekly checkpoint involves regularly reviewing cost data, identifying anomalies or trends, and engaging with technical teams to understand cost change drivers.

This blog was written in partnership with Michael Peterson of CrescoNet. In this blog, you will learn how CrescoNet has employed both basic and advanced techniques to reduce their costs without compromising the performance, scalability or reliability of their critical data pipeline. The challenge for CrescoNet CrescoNet is a leading integrator of smart metering solutions […]

Today, we are introducing AI-powered cost investigation, a new capability in AWS Cost Anomaly Detection (CAD) and the AWS FinOps Agent. When a cost anomaly fires, you can now get a plain-language root cause analysis in minutes and continue the investigation conversationally to drill into specific resources or identities, compare to past anomalies, or set the direction of […]

We’re excited to announce intelligent cost explanations in AWS Cost Explorer, powered by Amazon Q Developer. Click the ‘Analyze with Amazon Q’ button on any cost report to instantly receive detailed explanations covering your spending patterns, cost drivers, and anomalies, along with guidance to discover optimization opportunities through follow-up questions, all based on your exact […]

The latest Amazon Q cost capabilities are transforming how FinOps teams navigate cloud spend. By the time a FinOps team flags an expensive configuration, it may already be running in production. The fix can be more disruptive to deploy, the discussions can be more challenging, and the savings are often smaller than they could have been. […]

As you scale Generative AI usage with Amazon Bedrock, a common question emerges: “Which team, application, or user is driving the Bedrock spend?” Until now, answering that question required manual reconciliation correlating AWS CloudTrail logs with billing data to map API calls back to specific identities. That approach is time-consuming, error-prone, and difficult to maintain at scale. AWS has announced AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) Principal-Based […]

We’re excited to announce AI-powered cost analysis in AWS Cost Explorer, powered by Amazon Q Developer. You can now click a suggested prompt or ask a question in your own words right from the Cost Explorer. Amazon Q delivers detailed insights while Cost Explorer automatically updates its charts, tables, and report parameters to reflect the […]

AWS Nitro Enclaves promise a new level of security for sensitive workloads, but running them at scale across multiple clients introduces a hidden challenge: how do you actually know who used what, and for how long? This post explores a surprisingly lightweight and affordable architecture that brings real visibility to Nitro Enclave usage, making accurate client billing finally possible.