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Metric

What is total cloud spend, and how do you measure it in Metabase?

Definition

Total cloud spend is what your cloud usage costs per period — but the number depends entirely on the convention. Unblended cost matches the invoice; amortized cost spreads commitment prepayments over the usage they cover; net cost subtracts credits and refunds. A spend metric without its convention labeled is not a metric.

Formula: Total cloud spend = sum of cost line items per period, under one stated convention (amortized, unblended, or net of credits)

What data do you need?

  • Billing export line items or daily rollups (CUR 2.0, BigQuery export)
  • Pricing model per line (on-demand, Savings Plan, Reserved, spot)
  • Credits, refunds, taxes, and support fees identifiable as separate types
  • Amortization fields for upfront commitment purchases
  • Account, service, and tag dimensions for breakdowns

SQL pattern

Amortized spend by month with credits shown separatelyPostgreSQL
SELECT
  date_trunc('month', usage_date) AS month,
  ROUND(SUM(amortized_cost_usd) FILTER (
    WHERE line_item_type NOT IN ('Credit', 'Refund', 'Tax')
  ), 2) AS usage_cost,
  ROUND(SUM(amortized_cost_usd) FILTER (
    WHERE line_item_type IN ('Credit', 'Refund')
  ), 2) AS credits_and_refunds,
  ROUND(SUM(amortized_cost_usd), 2) AS net_total
FROM billing_line_items
GROUP BY 1
ORDER BY 1;

Common pitfalls

Mixing amortized and unblended cost across cards.→ Pick one convention per dashboard, label it, and keep an invoice-reconciliation view separate.
Letting credits and refunds hide inside usage trends.→ Model them as separate line-item types; a large credit can mask a real usage spike.
Comparing a partial month against a full one.→ Compare month-to-date against the same day count of the prior month, and note billing lag.

Where does this metric apply?

This metric commonly uses data from AWS Billing, Google Cloud Billing, Vantage, CloudZero, Kubecost, plus any warehouse models built on raw billing exports at the same grain.

Dashboards

Cloud spend overview dashboardCost allocation by team and tag dashboardCost per customer dashboardCommitment coverage dashboardCost anomaly dashboardKubernetes cost dashboard

Integrations

Cloud cost & FinOps integrationsAWS Billing + MetabaseGoogle Cloud Billing + MetabaseVantage + MetabaseKubecost + MetabaseCloudZero + Metabase

Metrics

Cost per customerCost growth rateCommitment coverage rateEffective savings rateUntagged spend rateBudget burn rateCost per service

Analytics

Cloud cost analytics

FAQ

Which convention should the company standard be?
Amortized net cost for management reporting, unblended for finance reconciliation. What matters most is writing the choice down and applying it everywhere — disagreement between dashboards erodes trust faster than either convention.
Should SaaS and non-cloud infrastructure be included?
Increasingly yes — platforms like Vantage normalize SaaS costs alongside cloud. If you include them, keep a provider dimension so cloud-only views remain possible.