Skip to main content
Cloud cost dashboards turn Explorer queries into persistent views. Use dashboards when an investigation becomes something a team, service owner, finance partner, or executive stakeholder needs to monitor repeatedly.
Costory CTO dashboard with squad breakdown, product line trends, and cost-per-client widgets

A CTO dashboard combining cost trends, budget tracking, and top cost drivers across AWS and GCP

​
Overview

Each dashboard contains one or more widgets. A widget keeps the query context behind it: metric, formula, filters, group-by, selected period, comparison period, and event context. Use dashboards to:
  • Give teams a self-service view of their own spend with and views
  • Track executive KPIs such as total spend, top cost drivers, budget progress, and month-over-month movement
  • Monitor coverage, Kubernetes waste, unit economics, and other FinOps metrics
  • Combine cost data with usage metrics and events so teams can explain cost changes from the same page

​
Dashboard workflows

You can build a dashboard from chat. Ask the Costory MCP for “a CTO dashboard with total spend, top services, and month-over-month change” and it creates the dashboard and widgets, which you can refine in the app.

Create and organize dashboards

Create dashboards from Explorer, add widgets manually, and organize dashboards with tags.

Dashboard templates

Start from pre-built FinOps dashboards for executives, teams, commitments, Kubernetes, and network costs.

Widgets and chart types

Choose bar, line, waterfall, doughnut, table, budget, and KPI widgets for the right analysis.

Sharing

Share a dashboard link, a widget in Explorer, a PDF, or per-user access.

​
Prerequisites

  • At least one cloud provider connected to Costory: AWS, GCP, or Azure
  • Optional dimensions for team, product, environment, or cost-center breakdowns
  • Optional usage metrics for unit economics widgets
  • Optional Teams for team-owned dashboards and default scopes

​
How dashboards relate to Explorer

Explorer is where you investigate a specific question with filters, group-bys, formulas, and comparison periods. Dashboards are where you keep the useful result. When you save an Explorer query as a dashboard widget, Costory keeps the same query configuration. The widget refreshes as new billing data arrives, so the dashboard stays current without rebuilding the analysis.

​
Example dashboard patterns

For ready-made starting points, see Dashboard templates.

​
Sharing and delivery

Dashboards support several sharing workflows. See Share cost views for the full model.
  • Send Share → Link so a logged-in user opens the dashboard with the same top-bar context (where clause, date preset, metric, group-by).
  • Use Open in Explorer or Share widget when the recipient should land on one query in Explorer.
  • Export a PDF for people without a Costory login. The PDF links back to the current dashboard context.
  • Grant Reader, Editor, or Can manage, or make the dashboard public to the organization.
  • Schedule a snapshot as a Cost Report to Slack, Microsoft Teams, or email.
  • Copy the widget SQL for BigQuery workflows when your organization uses BigQuery Data Exports.

​
Frequently asked questions

Use Share → Link for logged-in users. That URL includes the top-bar context, not per-widget edits. For one widget, click Open in Explorer and share from Explorer. For people without a Costory account, export a PDF. See Share cost views.
Yes. Build the query in Explorer, then save it as a dashboard widget. See Create and organize dashboards for the steps.
Yes. Dashboard widgets can use formulas that combine cloud cost with usage metrics, such as cost per active user or cost per build minute.
Yes. Combine dimensions, Shared Cost Allocation, budget widgets, and scheduled Cost Reports to support chargeback workflows.
Dashboards reflect the latest billing data available in Costory. See Data Refresh for ingestion timing.

Sharing

Grant access, copy a link, or restore a previous dashboard version.

Explorer

Build the queries that power dashboard widgets.

Cost Reports

Schedule dashboard snapshots to Slack, Teams, or email.

Dimensions

Create team-level and product-level cost groupings.

Budgets

Set spending targets and track progress on dashboards.
Last modified on September 16, 2026