Cost Reports

Cost dashboards only work if people see them. Cost Reports deliver multi-cloud cost breakdowns directly to Slack, Microsoft Teams, or email on a recurring schedule.

Costory report editor showing monthly cost by environment with schedule and email delivery settings — Monthly cost report configured with schedule, destinations, and period comparison

Overview

Cost Reports deliver a dashboard, dashboard widget, or Explorer-backed cost view as a formatted snapshot on a schedule you define. Each report includes the cost breakdown, a comparison against a previous period, and a direct link back to Costory. Where it fits in your day-to-day:

Sending weekly cost updates to each squad’s Slack channel so engineers see their infrastructure spend without logging into a dashboard
Delivering monthly executive summaries to leadership with pre-filtered views scoped to their business unit
Keeping SRE and platform teams informed about infrastructure cost trends as part of their existing review cadence

Get started

You can schedule a report from chat. Ask the Costory MCP to “send a weekly cost-by-team report to our #finops Slack channel” and it creates the schedule against the view you describe.

Create or open the source view

Open the dashboard, dashboard widget, or Explorer query you want to deliver on a schedule.

Click Schedule Report

Open the action menu and select Schedule Report. This opens the scheduling configuration panel.

Configuring a scheduled cost report in Costory from the Explorer, including chart, cadence, and destinations — Scheduling a report from cost context in Costory

Choose a delivery channel

Select where the report should be delivered. Costory supports Slack, Microsoft Teams, and email.

You can create multiple scheduled reports from the same source view, each targeting a different channel or cadence.

Before first delivery, complete channel setup for Slack, Microsoft Teams, or Email.

Configure cadence and comparison

Set the delivery schedule and the comparison period for the report.

weekly | monthly

How often the report is generated and delivered.

The reference period shown alongside the current period, so recipients see the cost change at a glance.

Confirm and send a test report

Review the configuration and click Save. You can send a test report immediately to verify the channel, format, and data before the first scheduled delivery.

There is no additional cost for scheduling reports. Send as many as you need across Slack, Teams, and email.

How a report is built

Every report combines the same building blocks, whether you assemble them in the UI, describe them to the Costory MCP, or send them to the Reports API:

A scope: the accounts, services, tags, or filters the report covers.
A group-by: the dimension the cost is split by, such as service, environment, or vendor.
One or more widgets: the charts rendered in the message.
A cadence: weekly on a set weekday, monthly, or on-demand.
One or more destinations: the Slack, Teams, or email targets it fans out to.

Each widget carries its own Explorer query in advancedExplorerRequest: a period, and a queries array holding the metric, group-by, and chart type to render.

Widget	What it shows
Trend graph	Cost over time as a line, so recipients see direction and relative size
Top and bottom	The largest items, and optionally the biggest increases and decreases
Digest	A breakdown of the change into drivers, with an optional AI narrative
Dashboard PDF	A full dashboard rendered as an attached PDF
Text	A short markdown note to frame the numbers

What you can build

The building blocks above cover a wide range of reports. The examples below show the output, the sentence that creates it through the Costory MCP, and the equivalent Reports API call.

Report	Grouped by	Cadence	Sent to
Weekly engineering pulse	Environment, then service	Weekly	Team Slack channel
Executive environment costs	Environment	Monthly	Leadership email
Kubernetes namespace showback	Namespace	Weekly	Platform channel
Marketplace and vendor spend	Vendor (invoice issuer)	Monthly	Finance channel
Credit and discount runway	Charge category	Monthly	FinOps channel
Tag coverage	Service	Weekly or monthly	FinOps channel

Each API example carries a complete widget query in advancedExplorerRequest. Scope filters go in each query’s whereClause; the examples show the intended filter as a comment. See Create a report for the full schema, the list of metrics and date presets, and a live playground.

Weekly engineering pulse

Give each engineering team a weekly view of what moved. Group by environment, then by service, turn on the Digest AI narrative, and deliver it to the team’s channel every Monday. Engineers see which service drove the change and why, without opening a dashboard. See the Decentralize FinOps guide for a full walkthrough.

Weekly Costory report grouped by environment and service with a Digest AI summary in Slack — Weekly environment-to-service report with an AI narrative, delivered to an engineering Slack channel

Send a weekly report every Monday to #eng-costs, grouped by
environment and then service, with the Digest AI summary turned on.

POST /reports
{
  "name": "Weekly engineering pulse",
  "scheduledPeriod": "WEEKLY",
  "scheduledWeekday": 1,
  "context": { "groupBy": "env", "datePreset": "LAST_WEEK" },
  "widgets": [
    {
      "type": "DIGEST",
      "enableAiInvestigation": true,
      "additionalGroupBy": ["cos_service_name"],
      "advancedExplorerRequest": {
        "period": { "datePreset": "LAST_WEEK", "aggBy": "Week" },
        "queries": [
          {
            "type": "cost",
            "metricId": "cost",
            "aggregator": "SUM",
            "groupBy": "env",
            "whereClause": {},
            "name": "Cost",
            "colorIndex": 0,
            "chartType": "TABLE"
          }
        ],
        "eventsFilter": {},
        "bookmarkedEvents": []
      }
    }
  ],
  "destinations": [
    { "destinationType": "SLACK", "destinationValue": "C0ENGCOSTS" }
  ]
}

Executive environment costs

Leadership usually wants one clean number per environment, not a drill-down. Build an environment that maps accounts, tags, and cluster labels to prod, staging, and dev, then schedule a monthly ranking of the top environments. Add a twelve-month trend to catch non-production creep, and deliver it to a leadership channel or mailing list. See Executive Cost Reports for more on building views for stakeholders.

Monthly Costory report ranking cost by environment with a twelve-month trend line — Monthly environment ranking with a twelve-month trend, emailed to leadership

Every month, email leadership@acme.com a report of our top
environments by cost, with a twelve-month trend.

POST /reports
{
  "name": "Environment costs",
  "scheduledPeriod": "MONTHLY",
  "context": { "groupBy": "env", "datePreset": "LAST_MONTH" },
  "widgets": [
    {
      "type": "TOP_FLOP",
      "topN": 10,
      "flopN": 0,
      "advancedExplorerRequest": {
        "period": { "datePreset": "LAST_MONTH", "aggBy": "Period" },
        "queries": [
          {
            "type": "cost",
            "metricId": "cost",
            "aggregator": "SUM",
            "groupBy": "env",
            "whereClause": {},
            "name": "Cost by environment",
            "colorIndex": 0,
            "chartType": "BAR"
          }
        ],
        "eventsFilter": {},
        "bookmarkedEvents": []
      }
    },
    {
      "type": "GRAPH_SNAPSHOT",
      "advancedExplorerRequest": {
        "period": { "datePreset": "LAST_12_MONTHS", "aggBy": "Month" },
        "queries": [
          {
            "type": "cost",
            "metricId": "cost",
            "aggregator": "SUM",
            "groupBy": "env",
            "whereClause": {},
            "name": "Cost by environment",
            "colorIndex": 0,
            "chartType": "LINE"
          }
        ],
        "eventsFilter": {},
        "bookmarkedEvents": []
      }
    }
  ],
  "destinations": [
    { "destinationType": "EMAIL", "destinationValue": "leadership@acme.com" }
  ]
}

Kubernetes namespace showback

On shared clusters it is hard to tell which team drives the EKS or GKE bill. Scope a report to reallocated namespace cost, group by namespace, and send a weekly breakdown with a fourteen-week trend and the last week’s movers to the platform channel. This gives each team on shared infrastructure. A sudden drop is as useful as a spike, since it can mean a broken workload or a real saving.

Weekly Costory report of reallocated Kubernetes namespace cost with trend and movers — Weekly per-namespace cost with a fourteen-week trend and last-week movers

Send a weekly namespace cost report to #platform every Monday,
with a fourteen-week trend and the top and bottom movers.

POST /reports
{
  "name": "Namespace showback",
  "scheduledPeriod": "WEEKLY",
  "scheduledWeekday": 1,
  "context": { "groupBy": "cos_namespace_reallocated", "datePreset": "LAST_WEEK" },
  "widgets": [
    {
      "type": "GRAPH_SNAPSHOT",
      "advancedExplorerRequest": {
        "period": { "datePreset": "TRAILING_14_WEEKS", "aggBy": "Week" },
        "queries": [
          {
            "type": "cost",
            "metricId": "cost",
            "aggregator": "SUM",
            "groupBy": "cos_namespace_reallocated",
            "whereClause": {}, // scope: only rows with a reallocated namespace (cos_namespace_reallocated != null)
            "name": "Cost by namespace",
            "colorIndex": 0,
            "chartType": "LINE"
          }
        ],
        "eventsFilter": {},
        "bookmarkedEvents": []
      }
    },
    {
      "type": "TOP_FLOP",
      "topN": 10,
      "flopN": 10,
      "advancedExplorerRequest": {
        "period": { "datePreset": "LAST_WEEK", "aggBy": "Period" },
        "queries": [
          {
            "type": "cost",
            "metricId": "cost",
            "aggregator": "SUM",
            "groupBy": "cos_namespace_reallocated",
            "whereClause": {}, // scope: only rows with a reallocated namespace (cos_namespace_reallocated != null)
            "name": "Cost by namespace",
            "colorIndex": 0,
            "chartType": "BAR"
          }
        ],
        "eventsFilter": {},
        "bookmarkedEvents": []
      }
    }
  ],
  "destinations": [
    { "destinationType": "SLACK", "destinationValue": "C0PLATFORM" }
  ]
}

Marketplace and vendor spend

Finance often needs to reconcile third-party software billed through the cloud invoice against purchase orders and renewals. Scope a report to marketplace purchases, group by vendor (the invoice issuer), and deliver a monthly ranking with a twelve-month trend to the finance or procurement channel. Native usage such as compute never enters the chart, so the vendor list stays clean.

Monthly Costory report of AWS Marketplace spend grouped by vendor with a trend line — Monthly marketplace-only spend ranked by vendor, with a twelve-month trend

Each month, send a marketplace-only report grouped by vendor
to #finance, with a twelve-month trend.

POST /reports
{
  "name": "Marketplace spend by vendor",
  "scheduledPeriod": "MONTHLY",
  "context": { "groupBy": "cos_invoice_issuer", "datePreset": "LAST_MONTH" },
  "widgets": [
    {
      "type": "GRAPH_SNAPSHOT",
      "advancedExplorerRequest": {
        "period": { "datePreset": "LAST_12_MONTHS", "aggBy": "Month" },
        "queries": [
          {
            "type": "cost",
            "metricId": "cost",
            "aggregator": "SUM",
            "groupBy": "cos_invoice_issuer",
            "whereClause": {}, // scope: marketplace purchases only (cos_marketplace_purchase == true)
            "name": "Marketplace cost by vendor",
            "colorIndex": 0,
            "chartType": "LINE"
          }
        ],
        "eventsFilter": {},
        "bookmarkedEvents": []
      }
    },
    {
      "type": "TOP_FLOP",
      "topN": 10,
      "flopN": 0,
      "advancedExplorerRequest": {
        "period": { "datePreset": "LAST_MONTH", "aggBy": "Period" },
        "queries": [
          {
            "type": "cost",
            "metricId": "cost",
            "aggregator": "SUM",
            "groupBy": "cos_invoice_issuer",
            "whereClause": {}, // scope: marketplace purchases only (cos_marketplace_purchase == true)
            "name": "Marketplace cost by vendor",
            "colorIndex": 0,
            "chartType": "BAR"
          }
        ],
        "eventsFilter": {},
        "bookmarkedEvents": []
      }
    }
  ],
  "destinations": [
    { "destinationType": "SLACK", "destinationValue": "C0FINANCE" }
  ]
}

Credit and discount runway

Committed-use discounts, savings plans, and promotional credits all settle on the monthly invoice, and a shrinking credit line is easy to miss until it is gone. Group a report by charge category to separate usage from credits, discounts, and refunds, and schedule it monthly. The last-month movers surface a credit that is running out before the real invoice arrives.

Monthly Costory report grouped by charge category showing credits and discounts over time — Monthly charge-category breakdown showing usage against credits and discounts

Send a monthly report grouped by charge category to #finops so
we can watch our credits and discounts.

POST /reports
{
  "name": "Credit and discount runway",
  "scheduledPeriod": "MONTHLY",
  "context": { "groupBy": "cos_charge_category", "datePreset": "LAST_MONTH" },
  "widgets": [
    {
      "type": "GRAPH_SNAPSHOT",
      "advancedExplorerRequest": {
        "period": { "datePreset": "LAST_12_MONTHS", "aggBy": "Month" },
        "queries": [
          {
            "type": "cost",
            "metricId": "cost",
            "aggregator": "SUM",
            "groupBy": "cos_charge_category",
            "whereClause": {},
            "name": "Cost by charge category",
            "colorIndex": 0,
            "chartType": "LINE"
          }
        ],
        "eventsFilter": {},
        "bookmarkedEvents": []
      }
    },
    {
      "type": "TOP_FLOP",
      "topN": 10,
      "flopN": 10,
      "advancedExplorerRequest": {
        "period": { "datePreset": "LAST_MONTH", "aggBy": "Period" },
        "queries": [
          {
            "type": "cost",
            "metricId": "cost",
            "aggregator": "SUM",
            "groupBy": "cos_charge_category",
            "whereClause": {},
            "name": "Cost by charge category",
            "colorIndex": 0,
            "chartType": "BAR"
          }
        ],
        "eventsFilter": {},
        "bookmarkedEvents": []
      }
    }
  ],
  "destinations": [
    { "destinationType": "SLACK", "destinationValue": "C0FINOPS" }
  ]
}

Tag coverage

When half the bill cannot be allocated, a tagging campaign needs a number the team can move. Track the share of in-scope cost that carries the required tag, grouped by service so the gaps point at an owner. The coverage ratio is a formula over two cost queries: tagged cost divided by all in-scope cost. Schedule it weekly during an active cleanup, then drop to monthly once coverage holds.

Weekly Costory report showing the share of cost tagged with team, broken down by service — Weekly tag-coverage ratio by service, with the services carrying the most untagged spend

Send a weekly report to #finops showing the share of cost tagged
with team, broken down by service, and the services with the most
untagged spend.

POST /reports
{
  "name": "Tag coverage",
  "scheduledPeriod": "WEEKLY",
  "scheduledWeekday": 1,
  "context": { "groupBy": "cos_service_name", "datePreset": "LAST_MONTH" },
  "widgets": [
    {
      "type": "GRAPH_SNAPSHOT",
      "advancedExplorerRequest": {
        "period": { "datePreset": "TRAILING_14_WEEKS", "aggBy": "Week" },
        "queries": [
          {
            "type": "cost",
            "alias": "a",
            "metricId": "cost",
            "aggregator": "SUM",
            "groupBy": "cos_service_name",
            "whereClause": {}, // scope: rows carrying the required tag (team != null)
            "visible": false,
            "name": "Tagged cost",
            "colorIndex": 0,
            "chartType": "LINE"
          },
          {
            "type": "cost",
            "alias": "b",
            "metricId": "cost",
            "aggregator": "SUM",
            "groupBy": "cos_service_name",
            "whereClause": {},
            "visible": false,
            "name": "All cost",
            "colorIndex": 1,
            "chartType": "LINE"
          },
          {
            "type": "formula",
            "formula": "a / b",
            "name": "Tag coverage",
            "colorIndex": 2,
            "chartType": "LINE"
          }
        ],
        "eventsFilter": {},
        "bookmarkedEvents": []
      }
    }
  ],
  "destinations": [
    { "destinationType": "SLACK", "destinationValue": "C0FINOPS" }
  ]
}

Explain a cost change on demand

Not every report is recurring. Before a finance review, you often need to explain a single number that moved. Send an on-demand report with a Digest widget that decomposes the change into drivers, for example compute in production up and a new database service added. Set the cadence to none and trigger it once with Run a report now.

Explain why our bill went up last month, broken down by service,
and post it to #finance once.

POST /reports
{
  "name": "Why did the bill move?",
  "scheduledPeriod": null,
  "context": { "groupBy": "cos_service_name", "datePreset": "LAST_MONTH" },
  "widgets": [
    {
      "type": "DIGEST",
      "enableAiInvestigation": true,
      "advancedExplorerRequest": {
        "period": { "datePreset": "LAST_MONTH", "aggBy": "Period" },
        "queries": [
          {
            "type": "cost",
            "metricId": "cost",
            "aggregator": "SUM",
            "groupBy": "cos_service_name",
            "whereClause": {},
            "name": "Cost by service",
            "colorIndex": 0,
            "chartType": "TABLE"
          }
        ],
        "eventsFilter": {},
        "bookmarkedEvents": []
      }
    }
  ],
  "destinations": [
    { "destinationType": "SLACK", "destinationValue": "C0FINANCE" }
  ]
}

Build reports with the API

Everything above is available over HTTP through the Reports API. Authenticate with a bearer token as described in the API overview, then create a report in a single call, preview a widget before scheduling, or run one now. The Costory MCP and the UI both call the same endpoints, so a report built in chat can be edited by hand later, and the other way around.

The reports endpoints are currently a staging preview on https://app-staging-api.costory.io and are not yet on the production API. Point integrations at staging until they ship to production.

Frequently Asked Questions

Which delivery channels does Costory support?

Costory supports Slack, Microsoft Teams, and email. You can send the same report to multiple channels by creating separate schedules from the same source view.

Can I send different views to different channels?

Yes. Each scheduled report is tied to a specific dashboard, widget, or Explorer context. You can create as many source views as you need and schedule each one to a different channel with its own cadence.

How often can reports be sent?

Reports can be sent weekly or monthly. The cadence is configured per schedule, so one source view can have a weekly report going to the engineering channel and a monthly report going to leadership.

Can I create reports from chat or the API?

Yes. Ask the Costory MCP in plain language, or call the Reports API directly. Both resolve to the same POST /reports call, so a report you start in chat can be edited in the UI or updated over the API.

What's the difference between Cost Reports and Digest?

Cost Reports deliver a snapshot of a dashboard, widget, or Explorer context on a recurring schedule. Digest is broader: it automatically analyzes your entire cost structure, ranks changes by dollar impact, and generates AI explanations for each change. Many teams use both, Cost Reports for ongoing team-level visibility and Digest for monthly cost reviews and anomaly triage.

Is there a limit on the number of scheduled reports?

No. Scheduled reports are included at no additional cost, and there is no cap on the number of active schedules.

Next Steps

Reports API

Create, schedule, and run reports over HTTP

Dashboards

Build persistent cost dashboards with multiple widgets

Explorer

Build the query context behind a report

Digest

Auto-triage cost anomalies with AI-generated incident reports

Decentralize FinOps

Give each squad ownership of their cloud costs

Automate Cloud Budgets

Define per-team budgets and automate alerts when teams exceed targets

Executive Cost Reports

Build the dashboards your leadership team wants to see

Get Started

Setup

Understand

Tag & Allocate

Share

Teams

Technical Documentation

Glossary

Overview

Get started

How a report is built

What you can build

Weekly engineering pulse

Executive environment costs

Kubernetes namespace showback

Marketplace and vendor spend

Credit and discount runway

Tag coverage

Explain a cost change on demand

Build reports with the API

Frequently Asked Questions

Next Steps

Reports API

Dashboards

Explorer

Digest

Decentralize FinOps

Automate Cloud Budgets

Executive Cost Reports

​Overview

​Get started

​How a report is built

​What you can build

​Weekly engineering pulse

​Executive environment costs

​Kubernetes namespace showback

​Marketplace and vendor spend

​Credit and discount runway

​Tag coverage

​Explain a cost change on demand

​Build reports with the API

​Frequently Asked Questions

​Next Steps

Reports API

Dashboards

Explorer

Digest

Decentralize FinOps

Automate Cloud Budgets

Executive Cost Reports

Overview

Get started

How a report is built

What you can build

Weekly engineering pulse

Executive environment costs

Kubernetes namespace showback

Marketplace and vendor spend

Credit and discount runway

Tag coverage

Explain a cost change on demand

Build reports with the API

Frequently Asked Questions

Next Steps