Cost Explorer

Priority Tier 4

AWS Cost Explorer is a service that allows users to visualize, understand, and forecast their AWS costs and usage over time. It is a key tool in AWS Cost Management, enabling users to analyze spending and make informed decisions for cost optimization.

Learning Objectives

Understand the primary purpose and capabilities of AWS Cost Explorer for cost visualization and forecasting.
Identify how Cost Explorer helps analyze past and projected AWS usage, including specifics for services like EC2 and Savings Plans.
Recognize the practical applications of Cost Explorer, such as investigating budget overages and supporting daily cost monitoring.

AWS Cost Explorer Overview

AWS Cost Explorer is a service designed to help users understand their AWS spending and usage trends.

Cost Explorer allows you to visualize and forecast your costs and usage over time. It is used to analyze and visualize where you're spending money in AWS.

Cost Explorer is utilized to view detailed data when investigating forecasted cost overages identified by AWS Budgets. It provides specifics regarding why an estimated overage might occur, for example, by adjusting dates to view cost spikes.

Cost Explorer is one of several tools available to help track ongoing spend, alongside AWS Budgets and the Cost and Usage Report.

Capabilities and Practical Use Cases

AWS Cost Explorer offers specific functionalities for detailed cost analysis and supports various operational tasks.

Cost Explorer enables users to view past 12 months of costs and forecast for up to 3 months into the future.

Technical Specs: View past 12 months; Forecast for up to 3 months

It can analyze EC2 usage over the past 7, 30, or 60 days, which is useful when considering options for Savings Plans.

Technical Specs: EC2 usage analysis: past 7, 30, or 60 days

Cost Explorer is recommended for daily monitoring of costs, especially during critical periods like the first week after a significant migration, to identify potential cost overruns.

Exam Tips

Cost Explorer: helps you visualize and forecast spending. (Source: 6, source_quote: Cost Explorer: helps you visualize and forecast spending.)

Key Takeaways

AWS Cost Explorer is a vital service for visualizing and forecasting AWS costs and usage, providing insights into spending patterns. (Source: 6)
It supports proactive cost management by integrating with AWS Budgets to investigate anomalies and by offering detailed usage analysis for services like EC2 and Savings Plans. (Source: 2, 6)

Content Sources

AWS Cost Optimization Deep Dive AWS Cost Optimization Deep Dive AWS Cloud Migration Services: A Struc... EC2 Cost Optimization Strategies Exam Prep Extracted: 2026-01-26 13:38:49.716157 Model: gemini-2.5-flash