Billing Alerts

Billing Alerts

Billing Alerts

When the threshold you specify is exceeded by your account billing, the alarm is triggered. It only activates when the current billing exceeds the threshold. It does not make projections based on your usage so far in the month.

Introduction

To assist you in staying within your budget, AWS offers billing alerts to notify you when your charges cross a predetermined threshold. Although it can take some time to set up and will cost you extra money, this can be a useful approach to control your expenses.

What Are Billing Alerts

When the monthly charges on your AWS account reach a preset limit, a Billing Alarm will alert you via email. This is a helpful tool for staying within your budget.

Enabling Billing Alerts

Follow these steps to enable Billing Alerts in your AWS Management Account.

  1. Sign in to Citadel and navigate to the Management section.
  2. If you have not set up your Citadel account, you will see the Initial Setup page. Follow the instructions.
  3. On the left side of the Management page, select the ‘Billing Alerts’ menu.
  4. Enable the option ‘Enable Billing Alerts’ toggle.
  5. Fill out the fields as directed below:
    1. Enter the email that you would like to receive the billing alerts.
    2. Enter the ‘Budget’ (in USD) to restrict your monthly bill. Leave it blank if you want to disable this alarm.
    3. Enable ‘Anomaly Detection’ to detect abnormal increases in AWS services costs.
  6. Click Save.

Image: Billing Alerts form on the Management page.
Image: Billing Alerts form on the Management page.

Email notification

If your monthly bill exceeds your specified threshold, you will receive an email from AWS with the details of your alarm. See the email sample below:

The email contains the AWS Account number, the Forecast Amount, and the Alert Threshold.
The email contains the AWS Account number, the Forecast Amount, and the Alert Threshold.

Anomaly Detection

If an anomaly is detected and exceeds 20% of the set budget, you will be notified via email with the details. This reduces surprise costs and enhances control over AWS Accounts in an AWS Organization.

Delegate access to the Billing console for non-root users

This option enables or disables billing access for non-root users into the AWS Accounts members of the AWS Organizations.

⚠️
This change must be made by the root user of the Management Account.

To grant non-root users access to the Billing and Cost Management console, follow these steps:

  1. Enter your root user credentials into the AWS Management Console (specifically, the email address and password that you used to create your AWS account).
  2. Select your account name from the navigation bar, followed by Account.
  3. Select Edit next to IAM User and Role Access to Billing Information.
  4. Select the Activate IAM Access check box to activate access to the Billing and Cost Management console pages.
  5. Select Update.

Now, the billing console can be accessed by any user with the correct permission set through Management Account. You can manage the access in the SSO (AWS Identity Center).

We suggest creating a group in the SSO with the standard permission set Billing and give access only for those users who need the access.

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