# Using the Cost Explorer chart


By default, you can view your costs at the chargeable rate as either a cash-based view with unblended costs or as an accrual-based view. In a cash-based view, your costs are recorded when cash is received or paid. In an accrual-based view, your costs are recorded when income is earned or costs are incurred. You can view data for up to the last 13 months, the current month, and forecast how much you're likely to spend for the next 12 months. You can also specify time ranges for the data and view time data by day or by month.

By default, Cost Explorer uses the **Group by** filter for the **Daily unblended costs** graph. When using the **Group by** filter, the Cost Explorer chart displays data for up to ten values in the **Group by** filter. If your data contains additional values, the chart displays nine bars or lines and then aggregates all remaining items in a tenth. The data table that's below the chart breaks out the data for individual services that are aggregated in the chart.

If your organization is onboarded to Billing Conductor, member accounts placed in billing groups automatically see your costs in Cost Explorer at the proforma rate configured in Billing Conductor. Member accounts can view costs and usage starting from when they joined their current billing group, and will lose access to the chargeable data for the period prior to joining their current billing group. If a backfill of proforma billing data is needed, submit a support ticket requesting a proforma backfill from the Billing Conductor team.

For more information about proforma rate configurations, see the [Billing Conductor User Guide](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/billingconductor/latest/userguide/what-is-billingconductor.html).

**Topics**
+ [

# Modifying your chart
](ce-modify.md)
+ [

# Reading the Cost Explorer data table
](ce-table.md)
+ [

# Forecasting with Cost Explorer
](ce-forecast.md)

# Modifying your chart


You can modify the parameters that Cost Explorer uses to create your chart to explore different sets of data.
+ [Selecting a style for your chart](#ce-style)
+ [Choosing time ranges for the data that you want to view](#ce-timerange)
+ [Grouping data by filter type](#ce-group)
+ [Filtering the data that you want to view](ce-filtering.md)
+ [Choosing advanced options](ce-advanced.md)

## Selecting a style for your chart


Cost Explorer provides three styles for charting your cost data: 
+ Bar charts (**Bar**)
+ Stacked bar charts (**Stack**)
+ Line graphs (**Line**)

You can set the style by choosing one of the views on the top right corner of the chart.

## Choosing time ranges for the data that you want to view


You can choose to view your cost data in monthly or daily *levels of granularity*. You can use preconfigured time ranges or set custom start and end dates. 

**To set the granularity and time range for your data**

1. Start Cost Explorer.

1. Choose a time granularity of **Daily**, **Monthly**, or **Hourly**.
**Note**  
To enable hourly granularity, opt in through the Cost Explorer console **Preferences** page as the management account. When hourly granularity is enabled, information is available for the previous 14 days.

1. For your monthly or daily data, open the calendar and define a custom time range for your report. Or, alternatively, choose a preconfigured time range (**Auto-select**) using the dropdowns shown below the calendar. You can choose from a number of historical or forecast time ranges. The name of the time range that you choose appears in the calendar.

   Hourly granularity is not available for billing transfer (showback/ chargeback views and billing group views).

1. Choose **Apply**.

### Historical time range options


In Cost Explorer, months are defined as calendar months. Days are defined as 12:00:00 AM to 11:59:59 PM. Based on these definitions, when you choose **Last 3 Months** for a date range, you see cost data for the 3 previous months. This doesn't include the present month. For example, if you view your chart on June 6, 2017, and select **Last 3 Months**, your chart includes data for March, April, and May 2017. All times are in Universal Coordinated Time (UTC). 

You can choose time ranges for both your past costs and your forecasted future costs.

The following list defines each time range option for your past costs in Cost Explorer. 
+ Custom

  Displays data for the **From** and **To** time range that you specify with calendar controls.
+ 1D (Last 1 Day)

  Displays cost data from the previous day.
+ 7D (Last 7 Days)

  Displays cost data from the day before and the previous 6 days. 
+ Current Month

  Displays cost data and forecast data for the current month.
+ 3M (Last 3 Months)

  Includes cost data from the previous 3 months but doesn't include the current month.
+ 6M (Last 6 Months)

  Includes cost data from the previous 6 months but doesn't include the current month.
+ 1Y (Last 12 Months)

  Includes cost data from the previous 12 months but doesn't include the current month.
+ MTD (Month to Date)

  Displays cost data from the current calendar month. 
+ YTD (Year to Date)

  Displays cost data from the current calendar year.

### Forecast time range options


With the **Daily** or **Monthly** time granularity, you have the option to view forecast costs in Cost Explorer. The following list defines each time range option for your forecast data. You can select a **Historical** time range and a **Forecasted** time range to display together. For example, you can select a **Historical** time range of 3 months (3M) and select a **Forecasted** time range of 3 months (\$13M). Your report includes historical data for the previous 3 months plus forecasted data for the next 3 months. To clear a **Historical** time range and see only the forecast, choose the **Historical** time range option again. 

**Note**  
If you choose any forecasted dates, your current date’s cost and usage data shows as **Forecast**. The current date’s cost and usage won't include historical data. 
+ Custom

  Displays forecast data for the **From** and **To** time range that you specify with calendar controls.
+ \$11M

  Displays forecast data for the next month. This option is available if you choose the **Daily** time granularity.
+ \$13M

  Displays forecast data for the next 3 months. This option is available if you choose the **Daily** or **Monthly** time granularity.
+ \$118M

  Displays forecast data for the next 18 months. This option is available if you choose the Monthly time granularity.

## Grouping data by filter type


Use the **Group by** button to have Cost Explorer display the cost data groups by filter type. By default, Cost Explorer doesn't use grouping. Forecasting isn't available for charts that have grouping. If you don't select a **Group by** option, Cost Explorer displays total costs for the specified date range. 

**To group your data by filter type**

1. Launch Cost Explorer.

1. (Optional) Use the **Filters** controls to configure a view of your cost data.

1. Choose a **Group by** option to group by the category that you want. The data table below the chart also groups your cost figures by the category that you select.

# Filtering the data that you want to view
Filtering data

With Cost Explorer, you can filter how you view your AWS costs by one or more of the following values:
+ **API operation**
+ **Availability Zone (AZ)**
+ **Billing entity**
+ **Charge type**
+ **Include all**
+ **Instance type**
+ **Legal entity**
+ **Linked account**
+ **Platform**
+ **Purchase option**
+ **Region**
+ **Resources**
+ **Service**
+ **Tag**
+ **Tenancy**
+ **Usage type**
+ **Usage type group**

You can use Cost Explorer to see which service you use the most, which Availability Zone (AZ) most of your traffic is in, and which member account uses AWS the most. You can also apply multiple filters to look at intersecting datasets. For example, you can use the **Linked Account** and **Services** filters to identify the member account that spent the most money on Amazon EC2. 

**To filter your data**

1. Open Cost Explorer.

1. For **Filters**, choose a value. After you make a selection, a new control appears with additional options.

1. In the new control, select the items from each list that you want to display in the chart. Or, start typing in the search box to have Cost Explorer autocomplete your selection. After you choose your filters, choose **Apply filters**.
**Note**  
Each time that you apply filters to your costs, Cost Explorer creates a new chart. However, you can use your browser's bookmark feature to [save configuration settings](ce-bookmarks.md) for repeated use. Forecasts aren't saved, and Cost Explorer displays the most recent forecast when you revisit your saved chart.

You can continue refining your cost analysis by using multiple filters, grouping your data by filter type, and choosing **Advanced Options** tab options. 

## Combining filters to show data in common


Cost Explorer displays a chart that represents the data in common to all the filters that you have selected. You can use this view to analyze subsets of cost data. For example, assume that you set the **Service** filter to show costs that are related to Amazon EC2 and Amazon RDS services and then select **Reserved** using the **** filter. The cost chart will show how much money **Reserved** instances on Amazon EC2 and Amazon RDS cost for each of the three months.

**Note**  
AWS Cost and Usage Reports in Cost Explorer can use a maximum of 1024 filters.
You can filter RI Utilization reports by only one service at a time. You can do this only for the following services:  
Amazon EC2
Amazon Redshift
Amazon RDS
ElastiCache
OpenSearch Service

## Filters and logical operations (AND/OR)


When you select multiple filters and multiple values for each filter, Cost Explorer applies rules that emulate the logical AND and OR operators to your selections. Within each filter, Cost Explorer emulates the logical OR filter to your selection of filter types. This means that the resulting chart adds the aggregate costs for each item together. Using the previous example, you see bars for both of the selected services, Amazon EC2 and Amazon RDS. 

When you select multiple filters, Cost Explorer applies the logical AND operator to your selections. For a more concrete example, assume that you use the **Services** filter and specify Amazon EC2 and Amazon RDS costs for inclusion and then also apply the **Purchase Options** filter to select a single type of purchase option. You will see *only* the **Non-Reserved** charges incurred by Amazon EC2 and Amazon RDS. 

## Filter and group options


In Cost Explorer, you can filter by the following groups:

**API operation**  
Requests made to and tasks performed by a service, such as write and get requests to Amazon S3.

**Availability Zone**  
Distinct locations within a Region that are insulated from failures in other Availability Zones. They provide inexpensive, low-latency network connectivity to other Availability Zones in the same Region. 

**Billing entity**  
Helps you identify whether your invoices or transactions are for AWS Marketplace or for purchases of other AWS services. Possible values include:  
+ AWS: Identifies a transaction for AWS services other than in AWS Marketplace.
+ AWS Marketplace: Identifies a purchase in AWS Marketplace.

**Charge type**  
Different types of charges or fees.  
+ **Credit**: Any AWS credits that are applied to your account.
+ **Other out-of-cycle charges**: Any subscription charges that aren't upfront reservation charges or support charges.
+ **Recurring reservation fee**: Any recurring charges to your account. When you purchase a Partial Upfront or No Upfront Reserved Instance from AWS, you pay a recurring charge in exchange for a lower rate for using the instance. The recurring fees can result in spikes on the first day of every month, when AWS charges your account.
+ **Refund**: Any refunds that you received. Refunds are listed as a separate line item in the data table. They don't appear as an item in the chart because they represent a negative value in the calculation of your costs. The chart displays only positive values.
+ **Reservation applied usage**: Usage that AWS applied reservation discounts to.
+ **Savings Plan covered usage**: Any on-demand cost that's covered by your Savings Plan. In an Unblended costs view, this represents the covered usage at on-demand rates. In an Amortized costs view, this represents the covered usage at your Savings Plan rates. Savings Plan covered usage line items are offset by the corresponding Savings Plan negation items.
+ **Savings Plan negation**: Any offset cost through your Savings Plan benefit that’s associated with the corresponding Savings Plan covered usage item.
+ **Savings Plan recurring fee**: Any recurring hourly charges that correspond with your No Upfront or Partial Upfront Savings Plan. The Savings Plan recurring fee is initially added to your bill on the day that you purchase a No Upfront or Partial Upfront Savings Plan. After the initial purchase, AWS adds the recurring fee hourly.

  For an All Upfront Savings Plan, the line item indicates the portion of the Savings Plan unused during the billing period. For example, if a Savings Plan was 100% utilized for a billing period, this shows as “0” in your amortized costs view. Any number greater than “0” indicates an unused Savings Plan.
+ **Savings Plan upfront fee**: Any one-time upfront fee from your purchase of an All Upfront or Partial Upfront Savings Plan.
+ **Support fee**: Any charges that AWS charges you for a support plan. When you purchase a support plan from AWS, you pay a monthly charge in exchange for service support. The monthly fees can result in spikes on the first day of every month, when AWS charges your account.
+ **Tax**: Any taxes that are associated with the charges or fees in your cost chart. Cost Explorer adds all taxes together as a single component of your costs. If you select five or fewer filters, Cost Explorer displays your tax expenses as a single bar. If you select six or more filters, Cost Explorer displays five bars, stacks, or lines, and then aggregates all remaining items, including taxes, into a sixth bar, stack slice, or plot line that's labeled **Other**.

  If you choose to omit **RI upfront fees**, **RI recurring charges**, or **Support charges** from your chart, Cost Explorer continues to include any taxes that are associated with the charges.

  Cost Explorer displays your tax costs in the chart only when you choose **Monthly** drop down. When you filter your cost chart, the following rules govern the inclusion of taxes: 

  1. Taxes are excluded if you select non-**Linked Account** filters, either singly or in combination with other filters. 

  1. Taxes are included if you select the **Linked Accounts** filters. 
+ **Upfront reservation fee**: Any upfront fees that are charged to your account. When you purchase an All Upfront or Partial Upfront Reserved Instance from AWS, you pay an upfront fee in exchange for a lower rate for using the instance. The upfront fees can result in spikes in the chart for the days or months when you make your purchases.
+ **Usage**: Usage that AWS didn't apply reservation discounts to.

**Instance type**  
The type of RI that you specified when you launched an Amazon EC2 host, Amazon RDS instance class, Amazon Redshift node, or Amazon ElastiCache node. The instance type determines the hardware of the computer used to host your instance.

**Legal entity**  
The Seller of Record of a specific product or service. In most cases, the invoicing entity and legal entity are the same. The values might differ for third-party AWS Marketplace transactions. Possible values include:  
+ Amazon Web Services, Inc. – The entity that sells AWS services.
+ Amazon Web Services India Private Limited – The local Indian entity that acts as a reseller for AWS services in India.

**Linked account**  
The member accounts in an organization. For more information, see [Consolidated billing for AWS Organizations](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/awsaccountbilling/latest/aboutv2/consolidated-billing.html).

**Platform**  
The operating system that your RI runs on. **Platform** is either **Linux** or **Windows**.

**Purchase option**  
The method you choose to pay for your Amazon EC2 instances. This includes Reserved Instances, Spot Instances, Scheduled Reserved Instances, and On-Demand Instances.

**Region**  
The geographic areas where AWS hosts your resources.

**Resources**  
The unique identifier for your resources.  
To enable resource granularity, opt-in through on the Cost Explorer settings page as the management account. This is available for Amazon EC2 instances.

**Service**  
AWS products. To learn what's available, see [AWS Products and Services](https://aws.amazon.com/products/). You can use this dimension to filter costs by specific AWS Marketplace software, including your costs for AMIs, web services, and desktop apps. See the [ What is AWS Marketplace? ](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/marketplace/latest/controlling-access/what-is-marketplace.html) guide for more information.   
You can only filter RI Utilization reports by one service at a time and only for these services: **Amazon EC2**, **Amazon Redshift**, **Amazon RDS**, and **ElastiCache**.

**Tag**  
A label that you can use to track the costs associated with specific areas or entities within your business. For more information about working with tags, see [Applying User-Defined Cost Allocation Tags](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/awsaccountbilling/latest/aboutv2/custom-tags.html#allocation-how) and [User attributes for Cost Allocation](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/awsaccountbilling/latest/aboutv2/user-attributes-cost-allocation.html), and [Account tags for Cost Allocation](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/awsaccountbilling/latest/aboutv2/account-tags-cost-allocation.html).

**Tenancy**  
Specifies if the Amazon EC2 instance is hosted on shared or single-tenant hardware. Some tenancy values include **Shared (Default)**, **Dedicated**, and **Host**.

**Usage type**  
Usage types are the units that each service uses to measure the usage of a specific type of resource. For example, the `BoxUsage:t2.micro(Hrs)` usage type filters by the running hours of Amazon EC2 `t2.micro` instances.

**Usage type group**  
 Usage type groups are filters that collect a specific category of usage type filters into one filter. For example, `BoxUsage:c1.medium(Hrs)`,` BoxUsage:m3.xlarge(Hrs)`, and `BoxUsage:t1.micro(Hrs)` are all filters for Amazon EC2 instance running hours, so they are collected into the `EC2: Running Hours` filter.  
Usage type groups are available for DynamoDB, Amazon EC2, ElastiCache, Amazon RDS, Amazon Redshift, and Amazon S3. The specific groups available to your account depend on what services you've used. The list of groups that might be available includes but isn't limited to the following:  
+ **DDB: Data Transfer - Internet (In)**

  Filters by the costs associated with how many GB are transferred to your DynamoDB databases.
+ **DDB: Data Transfer - Internet (Out)**

  Filters by the costs associated with how many GB are transferred from your DynamoDB databases.
+ **DDB: Indexed Data Storage**

  Filters by the costs associated with how many GB that you have stored in DynamoDB.
+ **DDB: Provisioned Throughput Capacity - Read**

  Filters by the costs associated with how many units of read capacity that your DynamoDB databases used.
+ **DDB: Provisioned Throughput Capacity - Write**

  Filters by the costs associated with how many units of write capacity that your DynamoDB databases used.
+ **EC2: CloudWatch - Alarms**

  Filters by the costs associated with how many CloudWatch alarms that you have.
+ **EC2: CloudWatch - Metrics**

  Filters by the costs associated with how many CloudWatch metrics that you have.
+ **EC2: CloudWatch - Requests**

  Filters by the costs associated with how many CloudWatch requests that you make.
+ **EC2: Data Transfer - CloudFront (Out)**

  Filters by the costs associated with how many GB are transferred from your Amazon EC2 instances to a CloudFront distribution.
+ **EC2: Data Transfer - CloudFront (In)**

  Filters by the costs associated with how many GB are transferred to your Amazon EC2 instances from a CloudFront distribution.
+ **EC2: Data Transfer - Inter AZ**

  Filters by the costs associated with how many GB are transferred into, out of, or between your Amazon EC2 instances in different AZs.
+ **EC2: Data Transfer - Internet (In)**

  Filters by the costs associated with how many GB are transferred to your Amazon EC2 instances from outside the AWS network.
+ **EC2: Data Transfer - Internet (Out)**

  Filters by the costs associated with how many GB are transferred from an Amazon EC2 instance to a host outside the AWS network.
+ **EC2: Data Transfer - Region to Region (In)**

  Filters by the costs associated with how many GB are transferred to your Amazon EC2 instances from a different AWS Region.
+ **EC2: Data Transfer - Region to Region (Out)**

  Filters by the costs associated with how many GB are transferred from your Amazon EC2 instances to a different AWS Region.
+ **EC2: EBS - I/O Requests**

  Filters by the costs associated with how many I/O requests that you make to your Amazon EBS volumes.
+ **EC2: EBS - Magnetic**

  Filters by the costs associated with how many GB that you have stored on Amazon EBS Magnetic volumes.
+ **EC2: EBS - Provisioned IOPS**

  Filters by the costs associated with how many IOPS-months that you have provisioned for Amazon EBS.
+ **EC2: EBS - SSD(gp2)**

  Filters by the costs associated with how many GB per month of General Purpose storage that your Amazon EBS volumes use.
+ **EC2: EBS - SSD(io1)**

  Filters by the costs associated with how many GB per month of Provisioned IOPS SSD storage that your Amazon EBS volumes use.
+ **EC2: EBS - Snapshots**

  Filters by the costs associated with how many GB per month that your Amazon EBS snapshots store.
+ **EC2: EBS - Optimized**

  Filters by the costs associated with how many MB per instance hour that your Amazon EBS-optimized instances use.
+ **EC2: ELB - Running Hours**

  Filters by the costs associated with how many hours that your Elastic Load Balancing load balancers ran.
+ **EC2: Elastic IP - Additional Address**

  Filters by the costs associated with how many Elastic IP addresses that you attached to running Amazon EC2 instances.
+ **EC2: Elastic IP - Idle Address**

  Filters by the costs associated with Elastic IP addresses that you have that aren't attached to running Amazon EC2 instances.
+ **EC2: NAT Gateway - Data Processed**

  Filters by the costs associated with how many GB that your network address translation gateways (NAT gateways) processed.
+ **EC2: NAT Gateway - Running Hours**

  Filters by the costs associated with how many hours that your NAT gateways ran.
+ **EC2: Running Hours**

  Filters by the costs associated with how many hours that your Amazon EC2 instances ran.

  This **Usage Type Group** contains only the following **Usage Types**:
  + BoxUsage
  + DedicatedUsage
  + HostBoxUsage
  + HostUsage
  + ReservedHostUsage
  + SchedUsage
  + SpotUsage
  + UnusedBox
+ **ElastiCache: Running Hours**

  Filters by the costs associated with how many hours that your Amazon ElastiCache nodes ran.
+ **ElastiCache: Storage**

  Filters by the costs associated with how many GB that you stored in Amazon ElastiCache.
+ **RDS: Running Hours**

  Filters by the costs associated with how many hours that your Amazon RDS databases ran.

  This **Usage Type Group** contains only the following **Usage Types**:
  + AlwaysOnUsage
  + BoxUsage
  + DedicatedUsage
  + HighUsage
  + InstanceUsage
  + MirrorUsage
  + Multi-AZUsage
  + SpotUsage
+ **RDS: Data Transfer – CloudFront – In**

  Filters by the costs associated with how many GB are transferred into Amazon RDS from a CloudFront distribution.
+ **RDS: Data Transfer – CloudFront – Out**

  Filters by the costs associated with how many GB are transferred from a CloudFront distribution to Amazon RDS data transfers.
+ **RDS: Data Transfer – Direct Connect Locations – In**

  Filters by the costs associated with how many GB are transferred into Amazon RDS through a Direct Connect network connection.
+ **RDS: Data Transfer – Direct Connect Locations – Out**

  Filters by the costs associated with how many GB are transferred from Amazon RDS through a Direct Connect network connection.
+ **RDS: Data Transfer – InterAZ**

  Filters by the costs associated with how many GB are transferred into, out of, or between Amazon RDS buckets in different Availability Zones.
+ **RDS: Data Transfer – Internet – In**

  Filters by the costs associated with how many GB are transferred to your Amazon RDS databases.
+ **RDS: Data Transfer – Internet – Out**

  Filters by the costs associated with how many GB are transferred from your Amazon RDS databases.
+ **RDS: Data Transfer – Region to Region – In**

  Filters by the costs associated with how many GB are transferred to your Amazon RDS instances from a different AWS Region.
+ **RDS: Data Transfer – Region to Region – Out**

  Filters by the costs associated with how many GB are transferred from your Amazon RDS instances to a different AWS Region.
+ **RDS: I/O Requests**

  Filters by the costs associated with how many I/O requests that you make to your Amazon RDS instance.
+ **RDS: Provisioned IOPS**

  Filters by the costs associated with how many IOPS-months that you have provisioned for Amazon RDS.
+ **RDS: Storage**

  Filters by the costs associated with how many GB that you have stored in Amazon RDS.
+ **Redshift: DataScanned**

  Filters by the costs associated with how many GB that your Amazon Redshift nodes scanned.
+ **Redshift: Running Hours**

  Filters by the costs associated with how many hours that your Amazon Redshift nodes ran.
+ **S3: API Requests - Standard**

  Filters by the costs associated with `GET` and all other standard storage Amazon S3 requests.
+ **S3: Data Transfer - CloudFront (In)**

  Filters by the costs associated with how many GB are transferred into Amazon S3 from a CloudFront distribution.
+ **S3: Data Transfer - CloudFront (Out)**

  Filters by costs associated with how many GB are transferred from a CloudFront distribution to Amazon S3 data transfers, such as how much data was uploaded from your Amazon S3 bucket to your CloudFront distribution.
+ **S3: Data Transfer - Inter AZ**

  Filters by the costs associated with how many GB are transferred into, out of, or between Amazon S3 buckets in different Availability Zones.
+ **S3: Data Transfer - Internet (In)**

  Filters by the costs associated with how many GB are transferred to an Amazon S3 bucket from outside the AWS network.
+ **S3: Data Transfer - Internet (Out)**

  Filters by the costs associated with how many GB are transferred from an Amazon S3 bucket to a host outside the AWS network.
+ **S3: Data Transfer - Region to Region (In)**

  Filters by the costs associated with how many GB are transferred to Amazon S3 from a different AWS Region.
+ **S3: Data Transfer - Region to Region (Out)**

  Filters by the costs associated with how many GB are transferred from Amazon S3 to a different AWS Region.
+ **S3: Storage - Standard**

  Filters by the costs associated with how many GB that you have stored in Amazon S3.

# Choosing advanced options


You can customize how you view your data in Cost Explorer using **Advanced options** to include or exclude specific types of data. 

**To include or exclude data**

1. Open the Billing and Cost Management console at [https://console.aws.amazon.com/costmanagement/](https://console.aws.amazon.com/costmanagement/).

1. In the navigation pane, choose **Cost Explorer**.

1. In the right pane, under **Advanced options**, under **Aggregate costs by**, choose between the following:
   + **Unblended costs**: This cost metric reflects the cost of the usage. When grouped by **Charge type**, unblended costs separate discounts into their own line items. This enables you to view the amount of each discount received.
   + **Amortized costs**: This cost metric reflects the effective cost of the upfront and monthly reservation fees spread across the billing period. By default, Cost Explorer shows the fees for Reserved Instances as a spike on the day that you're charged. However, if you choose to show costs as amortized costs, the costs are amortized over the billing period. This means that the costs are broken out into the effective daily rate. AWS estimates your amortized costs by combining your unblended costs with the amortized portion of your upfront and recurring reservation fees. For the daily view, Cost Explorer shows the unused portion of your upfront reservation fees and recurring RI charges on the first of the month.

     For example, suppose that Alejandro purchases a Partial Upfront `t2.micro` RI for a one-year term at \$130 dollars upfront. The monthly fee is \$12.48. Cost Explorer shows the costs for this RI as a spike on the first of the month. If Alejandro chooses **Amortized costs** for a 30-day month, the Cost Explorer chart shows a daily effective rate of \$10.165. This is the EC2 effective rate multiplied by the number of hours in a day.

     Amortized costs aren't available for billing periods before 2018. If you want to see how much of your reservation was unused, group by purchase option.
   + **Blended costs**: This cost metric reflects the average cost of usage across the consolidated billing family. If you use the consolidated billing feature in AWS Organizations, you can view costs using *blended rates*. For more information, see [Blended Rates and Costs](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/awsaccountbilling/latest/aboutv2/con-bill-blended-rates.html#Blended_CB).
   + **Net unblended costs**: This cost metric reflects the cost after discounts.
   + **Net amortized costs**: This cost metric amortizes the upfront and monthly reservation fees while including discounts such as RI volume discounts.

1. Under **Additional data settings**, select from the following:
   + **Show forecasted values**: Cost Explorer displays a forecast for how much AWS predicts you will spend over the forecast time period that you select, based on your past costs.
   + **Show only untagged resources**: By default, Cost Explorer includes costs both for resources that have cost allocation tags and for resources that don't have cost allocation tags. To find untagged resources that add to your costs, select **Show only untagged resources**. For more information about cost allocation tags, see [Organizing and tracking costs using AWS cost allocation tags](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/awsaccountbilling/latest/aboutv2/cost-alloc-tags.html).
   + **Show only uncategorized resources**: By default, Cost Explorer includes costs both for resources that are mapped to a cost category and for resources that aren’t mapped to a cost category. To find uncategorized resources that add to your costs, select **Show only uncategorized resources**. For more information about cost categories, see [Organizing costs using AWS Cost Categories](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/awsaccountbilling/latest/aboutv2/manage-cost-categories.html).

# Reading the Cost Explorer data table


A data table follows each Cost Explorer chart. The data table displays the cost figures that the chart represents. If your chart is using a grouping, the data table displays the aggregate amounts for the filter types that you choose for your chart. If your chart isn't using a grouping, the table displays the aggregate amounts for your past and forecasted cost data. You can [download](ce-download-csv.md) the .csv file that contains the complete data set for your chart.

**Note**  
For the RI Utilization and Savings report, the maximum table size is 20 rows. If the data exceeds this, it appears in a truncated form. 

In the grouped data table, each row is a value for one of the filter type options: API operations, Availability Zones, AWS services, custom cost allocation tags, instance types, member accounts, purchase options, Region, usage type, or usage type group. The columns represent time intervals. For example, the data table shows the costs for selected services for the last three months in separate columns. Then, the last column of the data table shows the aggregated total for the 3 months. 

**Note**  
Data transfer costs are included in the services that they're associated with, such as Amazon EC2 or Amazon S3. They aren't represented as either a separate line item in the data table or a bar in the chart. 

In the ungrouped data table, the row is your costs. The columns represent time intervals.

# Forecasting with Cost Explorer
Forecasting

You create a forecast by selecting a future time range for your report. For more information, see [Choosing time ranges for the data that you want to view](ce-modify.md#ce-timerange). The following section discusses the accuracy of the forecasts created by Cost Explorer and how to read them. 

A forecast is a prediction of how much you will use AWS services over the forecast time period that you selected. This forecast is based on your past usage. You can use a forecast to estimate your AWS bill and set alarms and budgets for based on predictions. Because forecasts are predictions, the forecasted billing amounts are estimated and might differ from your actual charges for each statement period. 

Like weather forecasts, billing forecasts can vary in accuracy. Different ranges of accuracy have different prediction intervals. The higher the prediction interval, the more likely the forecast has a wider range. For example, suppose that you have a budget set to 100 dollars for a given month. An 80% prediction interval might forecast your spend between 90 and 100, with a mean of 95. The range in the prediction band is dependent on your historical spend volatility, or fluctuations. The more consistent and predictable the historical spend, the narrower the prediction range in forecast spend.

Cost Explorer forecasts have a prediction interval of 80%. If AWS doesn't have enough data to forecast an 80% prediction interval, Cost Explorer doesn't provide a forecast. This is common for accounts that have less than one full billing cycle.

## Reading forecasts


How you read the Cost Explorer forecasts depends on the type of chart that you're using. Forecasts are available for both line charts and bar charts.

The 80% prediction interval appears differently on each type of chart:
+ Line charts represent the prediction interval as a set of lines that are on either side of your costs line.
+ Bar charts represent the prediction interval as two lines that are on either side of the top of your bar.

When forecasting costs, discounts are included by default.

**Note**  
If you want your forecasts to include non-recurring discounts such as refunds, we encourage you to use **Show net unblended costs**. For more information about different costs, see [Cost Explorer Advanced Options](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/cost-management/latest/userguide/ce-advanced.html).

## Using forecasts with consolidated billing


If you use the consolidated billing feature in AWS Organizations, the forecasts are calculated with the data from all the accounts. If you add a new member account to an organization, forecasts don't include that new member account until the new spending patterns of the organization are analyzed. For more information about consolidated billing, see [Consolidated billing for AWS Organizations](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/awsaccountbilling/latest/aboutv2/consolidated-billing.html).

## Understanding your forecasts with AI explanations


Cost Explorer provides AI-powered explanations that help you understand the key drivers behind your forecast predictions. These natural language explanations are available through the Cost Explorer console and detail the primary factors influencing your predicted costs, such as seasonal patterns, usage trends, or service-specific changes. The AI explanations can help you identify optimization opportunities, communicate forecast rationale to stakeholders, and build confidence in your cost projections. To access these explanations, generate a forecast in the Cost Explorer console and select the "Generate forecast explanation" option.

**Note**  
You can also ask questions about your forecasted costs using the suggested prompts or the **Ask question** button in Cost Explorer, powered by **Amazon Q Developer**. When viewing future dates, forecast related suggested prompts appear automatically. For more information, see [Asking questions about your costs using Amazon Q Developer](ce-nlq.md).