Automatically surface and triage the cloud cost changes that matter for FinOps reporting. Digest ranks every significant cost shift by dollar impact and generates AI incident reports with root cause analysis.
Cloud bills contain millions of line items with no sense of priority. Digest surfaces only the cost changes that matter, ranked by real dollar impact, with AI-generated explanations for each one.Monthly cloud cost reviews stall when you have to dig through your different billing consoles, GitHub PRs, and incidents. Cost digest ranks the changes that moved the bill, explains them with AI, and ships the result inside a scheduled Cost Report.
A cloud cost digest is an automated FinOps report that compares one billing period to another, ranks the largest cost movers by dollar impact, and drafts a plain-language explanation of why spend changed. Platform engineers use it to replace the monthly write-up they would otherwise assemble from billing consoles, GitHub PRs, and incident history. Finance and engineering stakeholders get a shareable Summary they can read without a dashboard walkthrough.A static chart or a table of numbers only shows that spend moved. Digest adds the ranked drivers and optional AI root-cause analysis, then delivers the narrative to Slack or email on a schedule. Digests cover AWS, GCP, Azure, and AI spend in the same tree.
Digest is an element inside a Cost Report, not a standalone export. You set the report scope once (metric, group-by, filters, currency), add a Cost digest, and stack other elements around it to match how you already report: a Graph for the trend, Text for markdown context, Top / Flop for a short ranking, or a Dashboard PDF when stakeholders still want the full board. Inside Costory you can reopen each run as Summary, Tree, or Table.Where FinOps reporting usually breaks down without a digest:
Pasting screenshots into Notion or Slack and answering “what happened?” in thread. See the monthly reporting guide.
Shipping charts without an explanation, so finance still needs a live walkthrough
Leaving each engineering squad without a scoped view of their own movers. Use dimensions to filter digests per team
Rebuilding a spreadsheet when an alert fires or a CFO asks why the bill jumped
Cost digest: A report element that turns period-over-period cost changes into a ranked tree and optional AI narrative for FinOps reporting.
Report parameters: The shared scope for every element in the report: Metric, Group By, Where, and Currency.
Additional group by: Extra dimensions stacked under the report Group By, in order. Each one adds a deeper level to the tree.
AI investigation: An async analysis that runs after scheduled or manual delivery. Deepest leaf nodes get root-cause text. It does not appear in the builder preview.
Costory AI: Costory’s AI FinOps assistant. It drafts the digest narrative and per-node explanations.
You can build the same digest from chat. Ask the Costory MCP to “send a monthly cost digest grouped by provider then service to #finops with AI investigation on” and it creates the report for you.
1
Create or open a Cost Report
Go to Reports and create a report, or open an existing one. Set the shared parameters that every element inherits.
Click + Add Element and choose Cost digest. Stack dimensions under Additional group by in the order you want the tree to expand. Tune thresholds and turn on AI investigation when you want narratives after delivery.
Cost digest element with Environment and Service Name dimensions, thresholds, and Enable AI investigation on
The reference period shown against the current period, for example last full month vs the previous month.
Other element types you can mix in the same report: Top / Flop, Graph, Dashboard PDF, and Text (markdown edited in the preview).
3
Preview as Tree or Table
Use Display in the preview to switch between Tree and Table while you tune dimensions and thresholds. Show filters increases, decreases, or all nodes.
4
Schedule delivery to Slack or email
Open Schedule & send, turn on Recurring report, pick a cadence, and add destinations. Put channels or emails that share the same filters in one row so the report runs once and fans out. Use separate rows for different filters or delivery types.
Schedule and send with monthly cadence and email destinations
AI investigation runs after delivery. Recipients see the narrative once the investigation finishes. Test send still validates destinations and layout.
Tree is the hierarchical breakdown: provider, then your additional dimensions, with absolute change, percentage change, and previous-to-current amounts. Increases show in red, decreases in green.
Tree display for Provider then Environment then Service Name
Table flattens the same nodes into columns such as Provider, Environment, Service Name, Absolute diff, and Relative diff. Useful when you want to scan or export movers without expanding the tree.
Table display of digest rows with absolute and relative diffs
After a run with Enable AI investigation on, open the sent digest and switch Display to Summary for the AI narrative. That narrative is what Slack and email recipients typically receive.
The UI, Costory MCP, and Reports API create the same DIGEST widget. Example: weekly engineering pulse grouped by environment, then service, with AI investigation on.
Set Group By to Provider, add Environment then Service Name as additional dimensions, enable AI investigation, and schedule monthly email to finance. You stop assembling the monthly write-up by hand. Finance gets the Summary narrative; you keep the Tree when someone asks for detail. Walkthrough: Automate Monthly Cloud Cost Reporting.
Filter Where to one team dimension, group by service, and send weekly Slack digests to each squad channel. Engineers see their own movers first, so fewer “is this ours?” pings land on the platform team. See Decentralize FinOps.
Leave scheduling off, add a Cost digest with AI investigation, and run the report now when an alert fires or a CFO asks why the bill jumped. The digest ranks which services or projects drove the change and drafts the explanation in the same shape you would write yourself.
Costory Digest is a FinOps reporting element that ranks period-over-period cloud cost changes by dollar impact and generates AI explanations for the movers. You add it to a Cost Report, optionally stack charts or markdown around it, and schedule delivery to Slack or email.
How is a Cost digest different from a static cost chart?
A chart shows that spend moved. A Cost digest ranks the drivers across dimensions you choose, applies absolute and relative thresholds, and can attach an AI narrative with root-cause analysis. Recipients get the explanation, not only the numbers.
Is Digest still a separate product area?
Cost digest lives inside Cost Reports. You build it as an element next to graphs, Top / Flop, dashboard PDFs, and text. Older standalone digest flows map to the same tree and AI behavior inside reports.
Why is the AI text missing in the builder preview?
Enable AI investigation runs after scheduled or manual delivery. The builder preview shows structure and thresholds only. Open a sent run and switch to Summary or expand Tree leaves to read the narrative.
How do I choose digest dimensions?
Start with report Group By for the first level. Use Additional group by for deeper levels, in the order you want the tree to expand. Common stacks: Provider then Service Name, Team then Project, or Environment then Service Name.
Does Cost digest work across AWS, GCP, and Azure?
Yes. Digests use all connected providers. Put Provider at the top of the tree, or group cross-cloud by team, environment, or any other dimension.
What is the difference between Cost digest and Top / Flop?
Top / Flop lists the largest increases and decreases for a single group-by. Cost digest builds a multi-level tree, applies absolute and relative thresholds, and can attach an AI narrative for Slack, email, and in-app Summary or Tree views.
Can I mix a digest with other report elements?
Yes. A common monthly pack is Text (context), Graph (trend), and Cost digest (drivers). Configure them once, then schedule to Slack, Teams, or email.
