How to set cloud budget alerts on AWS, Google Cloud and Azure

What you need before you start

• Billing access on the account. On Google Cloud that means a role such as Billing Account Administrator or Billing Account Costs Manager. On Azure, Owner or Contributor on the subscription.
• A monthly amount you are comfortable spending, which might be zero while you rely on credits.
• The email addresses that should receive alerts. Use a shared inbox if more than one person manages the account.
• Your credit expiration dates, so you can plan an extra alert before they end.

Costs are reported with a delay on every cloud, sometimes many hours. Set your thresholds a little lower than the amount you actually want to stay under.

Create a budget in AWS Budgets

To filter by service or linked account, or to add more thresholds, choose Custom under Template settings, or start with Customize (advanced) instead of a template.

1. Open the Billing and Cost Management console.
2. In the navigation pane, choose Budgets.
3. Choose Create budget.
4. Under Budget setup, choose Use a template (simplified).
5. Pick a template. Zero spend budget alerts you once spending goes past Free Tier limits. Monthly cost budget alerts you when you exceed, or are forecast to exceed, the amount you set.
6. Enter the budget name, amount and the email recipients.
7. Choose Create budget.

Create a budget in Google Cloud

1. In the Google Cloud console, go to Billing, then Budgets and alerts.
2. Click Create budget.
3. Enter a name, then set the scope: time range (monthly by default) and any filters for projects or services.
4. Review the Savings option. All savings, including promotional credits, are included by default. Deselect credits if you want alerts based on spend before credits, which helps you see when credits are being used up.
5. Set the amount, either a specified amount or last period's spend.
6. Set threshold rules. Defaults are 50, 90 and 100 percent of actual spend. You can switch any rule to Forecasted.
7. Keep Email alerts to billing admins and users turned on, add other channels if needed, and click Finish.

Create a budget in Azure

Microsoft notes that a brand-new subscription may need up to 48 hours before budgets are available, and that budgets are evaluated about once a day. Add azure-noreply@microsoft.com to your safe senders so alerts are not filtered as junk.

1. Sign in to the Azure portal.
2. Open Subscriptions, select your subscription, and select Budgets in the menu.
3. Select Add.
4. Confirm the scope, add any filters, and enter a budget name.
5. Choose a reset period (monthly, quarterly or annually), an expiration date and the budget amount.
6. Select Next to set alert conditions. Add at least one threshold as a percentage of the budget, choosing Actual or Forecasted as the type.
7. Add up to five email recipients and create the budget.

Test and maintain your alerts

• Check that the first alert email actually arrives, and is not caught by a spam filter.
• Add a second budget for the month your credits expire, set close to zero, so you hear about the first paid charges.
• Review the budgets whenever you add a new project, account or subscription.
• If you need to stop spending automatically, look into each cloud's automation options, such as AWS budget actions or Azure action groups. Plain budgets do not shut anything down.

Choosing sensible thresholds

If you are running entirely on credits, the most useful alerts track how fast credits are being used, not just your out-of-pocket spend. On Google Cloud you can deselect promotional credits in the budget's Savings filter so the budget measures gross usage. On AWS and Azure, compare your monthly cost in the billing console with the credit balance on the Credits or Azure credits page.

A simple pattern that works for small teams is three alerts on a monthly budget: 50 percent actual, 90 percent actual and 100 percent forecasted. The forecasted alert gives you warning in the middle of the month, and the actual alerts confirm what has happened.