Outcome
By the end of this lesson, you will be able to find the bill on AWS, Google Cloud or Azure, and describe the layers it is organised in.
| Prerequisites | I.3, I.4 |
| Time | 7 minutes |
1. Concept
Every cloud provider sends a bill once a month. Most of the time it covers a calendar month, from the 1st to the last day. It lists everything you rented in that time, how much of it you used, and what it cost.
Where to find it
Each provider keeps its bill inside its console, the website you use to manage your cloud.
| Provider | Where the bill lives | What else is there |
|---|---|---|
| AWS | Billing and Cost Management, then Bills | Cost Explorer, for charts of spending over time |
| Google Cloud | Billing, for the billing account that pays | Reports, for charts; the invoices and payment pages |
| Azure | Cost Management + Billing, then Invoices | Cost analysis, for charts of spending over time |
Viewing the bill needs permission. In most companies only some people can see it. If you cannot find it, that is normal: ask whoever looks after the cloud accounts.
Two views of the same money
You will meet two kinds of page:
- The invoice. The formal document that says what you owe and when to pay. It is final once the month closes.
- The cost reports. Charts and tables that show spending day by day, by service, region or team. They update during the month, usually a day or so behind.
Both describe the same money. The invoice is what finance pays. The cost reports are where people go to understand it.
How the bill is laid out
Almost every cloud bill is organised in the same layers, like a set of folders inside folders:
- The total for the month.
- Services. The total for each product you used, such as the rented machines, the storage or the database service.
- Regions. Inside each service, the amount for each place you used it in.
- Usage lines. Inside each region, one row per kind of usage: hours of a certain machine size, GB-months of a certain kind of storage, GB sent out, and so on. Each row shows the amount used, the unit price and the cost.
At the bottom, or alongside, sit the lines that are not rentals at all: credits, tax and fees. L3 covers those.
If the company has several accounts, projects or subscriptions (see I.4 L2), the bill can usually be split by those too.
2. Worked example
Here is the top of an illustrative AWS-style bill, opened one layer at a time. All numbers are illustrative.
Total for March $1,240.00 Elastic Compute Cloud (rented machines) $820.00 US East (N. Virginia) $600.00 Machine hours, one size, 3 machines x 730 hrs $438.00 Disk storage, 1,800 GB-month $144.00 Snapshot storage, 360 GB-month $18.00 EU (Ireland) $220.00 Simple Storage Service (file storage) $260.00 Data Transfer $160.00Read it top down. The total splits into three services. The machine service splits into two regions. The first region splits into three usage lines: hours, disk and snapshots. Check the sums: $438 + $144 + $18 = $600, $600 + $220 = $820, and $820 + $260 + $160 = $1,240.
That is the whole skill: open one layer at a time until you reach a line that names something you can picture.
3. Hands-on (5 min: no account needed)
1. Open the AWS Pricing Calculator: calculator.aws2. Create an estimate. Add Amazon EC2 in one region and Amazon S3 in another region.3. Fill in any small machine and any storage amount.4. Open the estimate summary.5. Note how the summary groups the cost: by service, and by region.The summary is laid out the same way as a real bill: services, then regions, then the details. If you already have a free-tier account, open Billing and Cost Management, then Bills, and compare.
4. Knowledge check
Q1
Where do you find the bill on Azure?
A. In the Compute Engine page
B. In Cost Management + Billing
C. Inside each virtual machine’s settings
D. In the AWS Bills page
Show answer
Correct: B. Azure keeps invoices and cost analysis in Cost Management + Billing. Compute Engine is a Google Cloud service, and the Bills page belongs to AWS.
Q2
What is the difference between the invoice and the cost reports?
A. The invoice covers only tax; the cost reports cover everything else
B. The cost reports are paid by finance; the invoice is only a chart
C. They describe different money and never agree
D. The invoice is the final amount; cost reports track spending as it happens
Show answer
Correct: D. Both describe the same money. The invoice is the formal, final document for the month. The cost reports update during the month so people can follow and explore spending.
Q3
A cloud bill is usually organised as:
A. Total, then services, then regions, then usage lines
B. A single number with no breakdown
C. A list of every employee who used the cloud
D. Usage lines sorted by the date each resource was created
Show answer
Correct: A. The bill nests like folders: the month’s total, each service, each region inside it, and the usage lines that show amount, unit price and cost.
5. Apply
Next time a bill total surprises someone, do not start with the total. Open the largest service, then its largest region, then its largest usage line. Three clicks usually get you from “the bill went up” to “this kind of usage went up”, which is a question someone can actually answer.