Enabling Cost Explorer - Amazon Cost Management
Services or capabilities described in Amazon Web Services documentation might vary by Region. To see the differences applicable to the China Regions, see Getting Started with Amazon Web Services in China (PDF).

Enabling Cost Explorer

You can enable Cost Explorer for your account by opening Cost Explorer for the first time in the Amazon Cost Management console. You can't enable Cost Explorer using the API. After you enable Cost Explorer, Amazon prepares the data about your costs for the current month and the previous 13 months, and then calculates the forecast for the next 12 months. The current month's data is available for viewing in about 24 hours. The rest of your data takes a few days longer. Cost Explorer updates your cost data at least once every 24 hours.

As part of the process of enabling Cost Explorer, Amazon automatically configures Cost Anomaly Detection for your account. Cost Anomaly Detection is an Amazon Cost Management feature. This feature uses machine learning models to detect and alert on anomalous spend patterns in your deployed Amazon Web Services services. To get you started with Cost Anomaly Detection, Amazon sets up an Amazon Web Services services monitor and a daily summary alert subscription. You're alerted about any anomalous spend that exceeds $100 and 40% of your expected spend across the majority of your Amazon Web Services services in your accounts. For more information, see limitations and Detecting unusual spend with Amazon Cost Anomaly Detection.

Note

You can opt out of Cost Anomaly Detection at any time. For more information, see Opting out of Cost Anomaly Detection.

You can launch Cost Explorer if your account is a member account in an organization where the management account enabled Cost Explorer. Know that your organization's management account can also deny your account access. For more information, see Consolidated billing for Amazon Organizations.

Note

An account’s status within an organization determines what cost and usage data are visible:

  • A standalone account joins an organization. After this, the account can no longer access cost and usage data from when the account was a standalone account.

  • A member account leaves an organization to become a standalone account. After this, the account can no longer access cost and usage data from when the account was a member of the organization. The account can access only the data that's generated as a standalone account.

  • A member account leaves organization A to join organization B. After this, the account can no longer access cost and usage data from when the account was a member of organization A. The account can access only the data that's generated as a member of organization B.

  • An account rejoins an organization that the account previously belonged to. After this, the account regains access to its historical cost and usage data.

Signing up to receive the Amazon Cost and Usage Reports or the Detailed Billing Report doesn't automatically enable Cost Explorer. To do so, follow this procedure.

To sign up for Cost Explorer
  1. Open the Amazon Billing and Cost Management console at https://console.amazonaws.cn/costmanagement/home.

  2. In the navigation pane, choose Cost Explorer.

  3. On the Welcome to Cost Explorer page, choose Launch Cost Explorer.

For more information about controlling access to Cost Explorer, see Controlling access to Cost Explorer.