Attribute costs
Cost attribution enables you to monitor and allocate usage costs for Cloud Metrics, Logs, and Traces across teams, services, departments, or systems. This feature provides detailed visibility into telemetry consumption, helping you manage costs more effectively by distributing accountability for observability costs across your organization.
With cost attribution, you gain the insights needed to optimize telemetry usage, improve financial planning, and promote accountability.
How cost attribution works
Cost attribution relies on labels (sometimes referred to as “attributes” in the context of tracing) on your telemetry data. The labels you configure determine how costs are allocated and attributed to different parts of your organization.
When you enable cost attribution:
- Grafana Cloud analyzes your telemetry data based on the configured labels
- Usage and costs are calculated for each unique combination of label values
- Attribution data becomes available in the Cost Management and Billing App
- You can view and download detailed cost allocation reports
Key features
Cost attribution provides the following capabilities:
- Flexible labeling: Configure up to 2 labels with a combined cardinality limit of 1,000 unique combinations
- Multi-product support: Attribute costs across Metrics, Logs, and Traces
- Real-time insights: View current month estimates and historical data
- Export capabilities: Download attribution data as CSV files for integration with financial reporting tools
- Unattributed tracking: Monitor telemetry that doesn’t include your configured attribution labels
Prerequisites
Before you begin using cost attribution, ensure that you have:
- Telemetry data flowing into Grafana Cloud with consistent labeling
- Labels applied to the majority of your telemetry data for effective attribution
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