Cost management: Budgets, Cost Explorer, Savings Plans

Sign in and set your alert email:

cd C:\aws-lab
aws login --profile saat-admin
$env:AWS_PROFILE = 'saat-admin'
$acct = aws sts get-caller-identity --query Account --output text
$email = 'you@example.com'

1See month-to-date cost by service and tag

Paste this whole block (two Cost Explorer calls, USD 0.02):

$today = Get-Date
if ($today.Day -eq 1) { $start = $today.AddMonths(-1).ToString('yyyy-MM-01') } else { $start = $today.ToString('yyyy-MM-01') }
$end = $today.ToString('yyyy-MM-dd')
$r = aws ce get-cost-and-usage --time-period "Start=$start,End=$end" --granularity MONTHLY --metrics UnblendedCost --group-by Type=DIMENSION,Key=SERVICE --output json | ConvertFrom-Json
$byService = $r.ResultsByTime[0].Groups | ForEach-Object { [pscustomobject]@{ Service = $_.Keys[0]; USD = [math]::Round([double]$_.Metrics.UnblendedCost.Amount, 2) } } | Sort-Object USD -Descending
$byService | Select-Object -First 4 | Format-Table -AutoSize
$t = aws ce get-cost-and-usage --time-period "Start=$start,End=$end" --granularity MONTHLY --metrics UnblendedCost --group-by Type=TAG,Key=course --output json | ConvertFrom-Json
$t.ResultsByTime[0].Groups | ForEach-Object { "{0,-28} {1:N2}" -f $_.Keys[0], [double]$_.Metrics.UnblendedCost.Amount }

You should see something like this (your numbers will differ):

Service                                  USD
-------                                  ---
Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud - Compute   1.84
Amazon Virtual Private Cloud             1.12
Amazon Simple Storage Service            0.21
AWS Key Management Service               0.08
course$                      0.31
course$saatvedha-aws         3.42

course$ is untagged spend: things like tax lines, some data transfer, and resources created without the tag. In a real company, a large untagged share is the first thing to fix, because nobody can own it. VPC cost is mostly the interface endpoints you create in labs.

2Budget the course tag

Paste this whole block. Confirm nothing; budget emails need no subscription:

@'
{
  "BudgetName": "saat-course-tag",
  "BudgetLimit": { "Amount": "5", "Unit": "USD" },
  "TimeUnit": "MONTHLY",
  "BudgetType": "COST",
  "CostFilters": { "TagKeyValue": [ "user:course$saatvedha-aws" ] }
}
'@ | Set-Content budget.json
@'
[
  { "Notification": { "NotificationType": "ACTUAL", "ComparisonOperator": "GREATER_THAN", "Threshold": 80, "ThresholdType": "PERCENTAGE" },
    "Subscribers": [ { "SubscriptionType": "EMAIL", "Address": "EMAIL_ADDRESS" } ] },
  { "Notification": { "NotificationType": "FORECASTED", "ComparisonOperator": "GREATER_THAN", "Threshold": 100, "ThresholdType": "PERCENTAGE" },
    "Subscribers": [ { "SubscriptionType": "EMAIL", "Address": "EMAIL_ADDRESS" } ] }
]
'@ -replace 'EMAIL_ADDRESS', $email | Set-Content budget-notifications.json
aws budgets create-budget --account-id $acct --budget file://budget.json --notifications-with-subscribers file://budget-notifications.json
Start-Sleep 30
aws budgets describe-budget --account-id $acct --budget-name saat-course-tag --query "Budget.[BudgetLimit.Amount,CalculatedSpend.ActualSpend.Amount]" --output text

You should see something like this (spend can take a few hours to appear for a new budget):

5.0     3.42

You’ll get an email when course-tagged spend passes 80 percent of USD 5, and earlier if AWS forecasts you’ll pass USD 5 by month end. Note the filter format: user:course$saatvedha-aws, with the user: prefix for your own tags.

3Ask about Savings Plans

Paste this whole block:

aws ce get-savings-plans-purchase-recommendation --savings-plans-type COMPUTE_SP --term-in-years ONE_YEAR --payment-option NO_UPFRONT --lookback-period-in-days THIRTY_DAYS --query 'length(SavingsPlansPurchaseRecommendation.SavingsPlansPurchaseRecommendationDetails || `[]`)'

You should see this in a lab account:

0

No recommendation, because nothing in a lab account runs steadily. In a company running 40 servers all month, this call suggests an hourly commitment and the expected saving. Buy only what covers the floor of your usage, after rightsizing.

4Write a waste finder

Paste this whole block. It saves Find-Waste.ps1 and runs it:

@'
param([string]$Region = 'ap-south-1')
# Rough Mumbai list prices; check the pricing pages for your Region.
$gp3PerGb = 0.0912; $snapPerGb = 0.05; $ipv4PerMonth = 3.65
$rows = @()
foreach ($l in @(aws ec2 describe-volumes --region $Region --filters Name=status,Values=available --query "Volumes[].[VolumeId,Size,VolumeType,AvailabilityZone]" --output text)) {
  if (-not $l) { continue }
  $id, $size, $type, $az = $l -split "`t"
  $rows += [pscustomobject]@{ Type = 'EBSVolume'; Id = $id; Detail = "$size GiB $type, $az"; EstUsdPerMonth = [math]::Round([double]$size * $gp3PerGb, 2) }
}
foreach ($l in @(aws ec2 describe-addresses --region $Region --query "Addresses[?AssociationId==null].[AllocationId,PublicIp]" --output text)) {
  if (-not $l) { continue }
  $id, $ip = $l -split "`t"
  $rows += [pscustomobject]@{ Type = 'ElasticIP'; Id = $id; Detail = $ip; EstUsdPerMonth = $ipv4PerMonth }
}
foreach ($l in @(aws ec2 describe-snapshots --region $Region --owner-ids self --query "Snapshots[].[SnapshotId,VolumeSize,StartTime]" --output text)) {
  if (-not $l) { continue }
  $id, $size, $start = $l -split "`t"
  if ([datetime]$start -lt (Get-Date).AddDays(-90)) { $rows += [pscustomobject]@{ Type = 'OldSnapshot'; Id = $id; Detail = "$size GiB, $start"; EstUsdPerMonth = [math]::Round([double]$size * $snapPerGb, 2) } }
}
foreach ($l in @(aws ec2 describe-instances --region $Region --filters Name=instance-state-name,Values=stopped --query "Reservations[].Instances[].[InstanceId,InstanceType]" --output text)) {
  if (-not $l) { continue }
  $id, $type = $l -split "`t"
  $rows += [pscustomobject]@{ Type = 'StoppedEC2'; Id = $id; Detail = "$type (volumes still billed)"; EstUsdPerMonth = $null }
}
if ($rows) { $rows | Format-Table -AutoSize } else { "No waste found in $Region" }
'@ | Set-Content C:\aws-lab\Find-Waste.ps1
.\Find-Waste.ps1

In a clean lab account you should see this:

No waste found in ap-south-1

Run it in each Region you use, monthly. It looks for unattached volumes, Elastic IPs not attached to anything, snapshots older than 90 days and stopped instances, whose volumes are still billed. Cost Explorer and AWS Trusted Advisor have similar checks, but a script you own can run anywhere and feed a report.

✅ Checkpoint: You broke down this month’s cost by service and tag, created the saat-course-tag budget with actual and forecast alerts, saw the Savings Plans recommendation, and Find-Waste.ps1 reports a clean account.