--- title: "Create usage and cost alerts | Grafana Cloud documentation" description: "Set up proactive alerts to monitor your Grafana Cloud usage and costs, preventing unexpected billing surprises." --- # Create usage and cost alerts Create usage and cost alerts to maintain control over your observability spending by receiving notifications when usage or costs approach predefined thresholds. This proactive approach prevents unexpected billing surprises and helps optimize your Grafana Cloud investment. ## Before you begin To **create** alerts, you must have the permissions granted by the [Usage alerts admin](/docs/grafana-cloud/cost-management-and-billing/set-up/cost-management-billing-rbac/#manage-access-to-the-cost-management-and-billing-app-using-role-based-access-control) role. ## Create a usage alert Usage alerts monitor data ingestion rates and notify you when consumption exceeds expected levels. > Note > > The **Cost Management and Billing** App will be available either in the top level navigation of your Grafana instance, or under **More apps**. To create a usage alert, complete the following steps: 1. Sign in to your Grafana Cloud instance. 2. Navigate to **Cost Management and Billing**. 3. Click **Usage Alerts** tab in the top navigation menu. 4. Click **+ Create usage alerts** if no alert exists yet, or click **+ Create new alert** from the list view. 5. In the **Product** drop-down, select the product you want to monitor. 6. Set the monthly threshold: - For **Global Spend** enter your planned monthly budget in United States dollars (USD) - For **Metrics**, **Logs**, or **Traces**, enter your planned monthly usage threshold (for example, 4000 for metrics billable series or 1 GiB for logs) 7. In the **Select alert levels** section, select one or more suggested thresholds (for example, 50%, 70%, or 85% of your budget). You can also enter a custom percentage 8. From the **Contact point** drop-down, select where alert notifications should be sent. If you haven’t set up a contact point, click **View or create contact points** to configure one 9. Click **Create alerts** to save your new usage alert The alert becomes active immediately and begins monitoring your specified usage metrics. Properly configured alerts help you maintain budget control and prevent unexpected costs in your Grafana Cloud environment. ## Create a cost attribution-based usage alert You can configure usage alerts based on your [cost attribution](/docs/grafana-cloud/cost-management-and-billing/cost-attributions/) configuration to monitor usage and costs for teams, services, departments, or systems. When both primary and secondary attribution labels are configured, you can combine how each label is filtered in a single alert. ### Prerequisites Before creating a cost attribution-based alert, ensure that you have: - [Configured cost attribution labels](/docs/grafana-cloud/cost-management-and-billing/cost-attributions/set-up/) in your Grafana Cloud stack - Attribution data available for the labels you want to monitor > Note > > Cost attribution-based alerts are only available if you have cost attribution configured. If cost attribution is not set up, you can only create alerts for global usage or costs. ### Create an alert based on cost attribution To create a usage alert based on your cost attribution configuration, complete the following steps. 01. Sign in to your Grafana Cloud instance. 02. Navigate to **Cost Management and Billing**. 03. Click **Usage Alerts** tab in the top navigation menu. 04. Click **+ Create usage alerts** if no alert exists yet, or click **+ Create new alert** from the list view. 05. At the top of the drawer, select **Attributed usage** as the type of alert. 06. In the **Product** drop-down, select the product you want to monitor. 07. Configure how each configured attribution label applies to the alert. When [cost attribution](/docs/grafana-cloud/cost-management-and-billing/cost-attributions/set-up/) includes both a primary and a secondary label, controls for **both** labels appear so you can combine them in one alert. If you configured only one attribution label, only that label’s control appears. For each label that has a control, choose one option: - **No filter**: Do not aggregate or filter on this label. - **`__missing__`** : Monitor **unattributed** usage for this label (telemetry that does not include the label). - **Group by all values**: Use one monthly threshold for all values of this label; the alert fires when any value exceeds the threshold. - **A specific value**: Select a single label value from the list (for example, one team or service). You can select only one such value per label. 08. Set the monthly threshold: - For **Metrics**, **Logs**, or **Traces**, enter your planned monthly usage threshold - How this threshold applies depends on your label selections (for example, a single value, all values with **Group by all values**, or **`__missing__`** ) 09. In the **Select alert levels** section, select one or more suggested thresholds (for example, 50%, 70%, or 85% of your budget). You can also enter a custom percentage 10. From the **Contact point** drop-down, select where alert notifications should be sent. If you haven’t set up a contact point, click **View or create contact points** to configure one 11. Click **Create alerts** to save your new cost attribution-based usage alert How the alert evaluates usage depends on the combination of options you chose for each label: - **No filter** on a label omits that label from the alert’s grouping so the rule does not filter series by it. - **`__missing__`** targets unattributed data for that label. - **Group by all values** applies one threshold across all values of that label; firing when any value crosses the threshold (for example, a Prometheus-style `sum by (label)` over attributed series). - **A specific value** restricts the alert to that single value for that label. You can mix these per label (for example, **Group by all values** on one label and **No filter** on the other) to match how you want to slice attributed usage. Notifications still go to the contact point you selected.