Getting started: connect Azure and set up CostGuard
The Getting started page tells you whether CostGuard is receiving your Azure cost data and what to set up next. This article explains each step, every status it can show and what to do about it.
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Every page of CostGuard explained: what each panel shows, how each figure is calculated, and where its limits are.
Getting started
Set up your workspace, connect Azure and read your first sync.
Understand your costs
See where the money goes: the Dashboard, cost analysis, ownership and anomalies.
Dashboard: what you spend on Azure, and what changed
The Dashboard shows what the selected subscriptions cost over the selected dates, how that compares with the period before, where the month is heading, and what needs your attention. This article explains every panel, how each figure is calculated and what it leaves out.
Cost overview: where the money went, and what changed
The Cost overview shows what the selected scope cost over the selected dates, how that compares with the period just before, and which services, subscriptions and resource groups the money went to. This article explains every part of the page, how each figure is calculated and what it leaves out.
Cost trend: how spend moved day by day
Cost trend shows the selected scope's cost day by day, laid over the period just before, with the figures that describe its shape: the daily average and its change, the highest, lowest and latest day, the average by day of the week and the cost month by month. This article explains every part of the page, how each figure is calculated and what it leaves out.
Cost by service: one service's cost and where it runs
Cost by service shows one service at a time in the selected scope: what it cost, its rank and share, how its cost changed against the period just before, its day-by-day line, and the subscriptions and resource groups it was billed in. This article explains every part of the page, how each figure is calculated and what it leaves out.
Cost by resource group: ranking and drill-down
Cost by resource group ranks every resource group of the selected scope with its share and its change against the period just before, and opens one group: its cost, rank and share, its day-by-day line and the services it is made of.
Cost Explorer: group and compare your cost
Cost Explorer lists the cost of the selected scope by the grouping you choose: service, resource group, resource, meter or subscription. Every item shows its share and its change against the period just before, and a filter finds any item by name.
Cost allocation: see who owns your Azure cost
Cost allocation shows how much of each currency's recorded cost your ownership assignments account for, who owns it, and which cost has no owner yet. You add and change the assignments on the same page.
Unit economics: revenue, cloud cost and margin
Unit economics sets the revenue you record against your Azure cost that has an owner, one currency at a time. It shows the margin that is left, how it changed against the previous period and how it moved month by month.
AI and Azure OpenAI spend: cost data and your register
See what your AI services cost in the Azure cost data your workspace imported, beside a register of the periods you record from your own bills, one currency and one cost measure at a time.
Cost map: where your cost sits and which branch moved
The cost map nests the recorded cost of the selected scope by subscription, then resource group, then service. It shows each branch's share of the level above and its change against the period just before, and ranks the resource groups whose cost moved the most.
Optimize and save
Act on recommendations, follow the cost increases they find, and manage commitments and credits.
All recommendations: every cost signal and its decision
The All recommendations page lists every recommendation CostGuard has raised in your workspace - open, dismissed or resolved - for all subscriptions or one. It shows what each check found, the evidence behind it and what was decided, and lets you dismiss, resolve or reopen it.
Open recommendations: the work queue of cost signals
The Open recommendations page is the work queue of your workspace: every recommendation CostGuard has raised that still needs a decision, for all subscriptions or one. It shows how severe each one is, what its evidence says, how long it has been open and whether it is still detected, and lets you dismiss it, resolve it or give feedback on it.
Dismissed recommendations: the record of your dismissals
The Dismissed recommendations page is the record of what your workspace decided not to act on, for all subscriptions or one. It shows when each recommendation was dismissed, what its evidence said at its last detection and whether CostGuard is finding the same pattern again, and lets you reopen a dismissal or stop a known pattern from coming back.
Savings opportunities: cost increases in each currency
The Savings opportunities page lists the open recommendations where one of CostGuard's growth checks found a cost increase, for all subscriptions or one - a place to look for savings, not an estimate of them. It counts them in each currency with the largest single increase, lists them by increase within each currency, and lets you dismiss or resolve one, or give feedback on it.
Recommendation insights: is the workspace keeping up?
The Recommendation insights page counts the recommendations CostGuard stores for your workspace, for all subscriptions or one: how many are open, dismissed or resolved, how severe and how old the open ones are, which checks and subscriptions they come from, which closed findings are open again, how many are savings opportunities, and when CostGuard last detected one. It shows counts and dates only, never an amount.
Recommendation feedback: answers and suppression rules
The Recommendation feedback page explains the six answers you can give on a recommendation, and lists every suppression rule your workspace holds: what each covers, when it starts and stops, how many open recommendations it matches and where it came from. You can end an active rule, or suppress an ended one again for 90 days.
Plan and control
Forecast spend, set budgets, and let alerts and reports watch them for you.
Budgets: see which budget needs action
The Budgets page shows how much of each budget its current period has used and grades every budget as on track, at risk or over. An Owner or an Admin creates, edits, enables and disables budgets from it.
Forecast overview: where this month's cost is heading
The Forecast overview shows where this month's cost is heading, for all subscriptions or one, in one currency: the cost recorded so far plus the Baseline forecast for the remaining days, set against the budget of the scope and against last month, with the subscriptions the forecast covers and the ones it leaves out.
Forecast scenarios: the assumptions behind each forecast
The Forecast scenarios page keeps the scenarios behind every forecast, for all subscriptions or one: which Baseline feeds each subscription's month-end forecast on Forecast overview, whether each active scenario has a forecast and how far it reaches, and which subscriptions with recorded cost have no Baseline yet. It is also where a scenario is created, changed, paused and archived.