Our Cost Metrics:

Cost (Billed Cost): This is the amount you pay at the end of the month.
Effective Cost: This is the amount including amortization of savings plan and reservations upfront fees.
List Cost: This is the amount calculated from public list prices: it represents the cost you would have paid if you had not negotiated a special pricing / commited.
Contracted Cost: Cost under your negotiated EDP or special pricing, excluding all Savings Plan discounts and credits. This allows you to see the effect of your savings plan on your costs.
We advise to track Contracted Cost for your engineering team since it only depends on actual usage. tracking cost can be misleading because of the savings plan and potential credits you receive during the year.

AWS:

AWS Cost Explorer Metric / Field	Costory Equivalent	Adjustments	Meaning
Net Unblended Cost	Cost (Billed Cost)	Taxes excluded	Matches the amount on your AWS invoice after all applied discounts and credits.
Net Amortized Cost	Effective Cost	Taxes excluded	Same as billed cost but with upfront RI/Savings Plan fees spread evenly across the covered period.
(No AWS equivalent)	List Cost	Taxes excluded	Cost calculated from AWS public list prices × usage quantity. Ignores all EDP, RI, and Savings Plan discounts.
(No AWS equivalent)	Contracted Cost	Taxes excluded	Cost under your negotiated EDP or special pricing, excluding all Savings Plan discounts and credits.

GCP Billing Field	Costory Equivalent	Adjustments	Meaning
Cost including all credits and CUD	Cost (Billed Cost)	Taxes excluded	Total cost including all credits (promotions, SUD, CUD, reseller margin). Matches your GCP invoice.
Cost including all credits and CUD	Effective Cost	Taxes excluded	Same as billed cost — GCP does not separate amortized vs non-amortized costs.
cost_at_list	List Cost	Taxes excluded	Cost calculated from GCP public list prices. Only applies to regular cost rows, not credits.
(No GCP equivalent)	Contracted Cost	Taxes excluded	Cost excluding promotions, SUD, subscription benefits, reseller margin, and CUD credits. Commitment costs are also excluded.

Azure Cost Management Field	Costory Equivalent	Adjustments	Meaning
Actual Cost (costInUsd)	Cost (Billed Cost)	Taxes excluded	Matches the amount on your Azure invoice. Uses the “actual” cost export.
Amortized Cost (costInUsd)	Effective Cost	Taxes excluded	Same as billed cost but with upfront reservation and savings plan fees spread evenly across the covered period. Uses the “amortized” cost export.
PayG Cost (paygCostInUsd)	List Cost	Taxes excluded	Cost calculated from Azure pay-as-you-go rates before any discounts.
Actual Cost (costInUsd)	Contracted Cost	Taxes excluded	Same as billed cost — Azure does not provide a separate contracted rate equivalent.

DataDog Billing Field	Costory Equivalent	Adjustments	Meaning
billed_cost	Cost (Billed Cost)	None	The amount billed by DataDog for the usage period.
effective_cost	Effective Cost	None	Same as billed costs, but your commitments that can be amortized are spread out per day based on the actual usage
billed_cost	List Cost	None	Same as billed cost — DataDog does not provide separate list pricing.
billed_cost	Contracted Cost	None	Same as billed cost — DataDog does not distinguish contracted vs standard pricing.