Licensing

The Licensing section in CloudSpend provides a breakdown of how you're billed by CloudSpend for using its features. It reflects your CloudSpend usage charges, and the overall volume of cloud billing data processed.

Overview

Instead of showing how much your cloud provider (AWS, Azure, or GCP) is charging you, the Licensing section shows how much CloudSpend is charging you for the cost management and analysis services it provides.

This is especially useful if you’re managing multiple cost accounts across teams or cost centers and want transparency into how CloudSpend usage is billed over time.

With the Licensing section, you can leverage the following benefits:

• Usage transparency: Know exactly how and when you're being billed by CloudSpend.
• Historical visibility: Review past CloudSpend charges to understand how your usage patterns have changed over time.
• Data accountability: See how changes in CloudSpend usage affect your billing (e.g., adding more accounts).
• Cost control: If charges increase unexpectedly, you can trace back to specific periods or changes in the setup.

Understanding the Licensing page

Use the image below to understand each numbered section:

1. Date range selector

At the top right of the page, you can filter the billed usage data by selecting a custom date range. Use the From and To fields to define the period you'd like to review. You can also toggle the view to Monthly, Quarterly, and Yearly aggregated data. These views adjust the granularity of the cost trends displayed in the chart.

2. Schedule report and share options

You can automate or export your billing information:

• Schedule Report: Set up regular email delivery of this licensing billing report to your finance or admin teams.
• Share: Download or share the report in your preferred format.

This helps maintain billing transparency and supports internal reviews.

3. Billed cost chart

This bar chart shows your CloudSpend licensing charges over time. Each bar reflects the amount billed by CloudSpend for a specific period.

For example, if you’ve processed more cloud cost data or added more cost accounts during a month, the bar height may increase to reflect that higher usage. This makes it easy to track usage-based billing trends, including any unexpected increases.

In the above screenshot:

• October 2025 shows the highest charge, likely due to higher usage.
• However, the charges drop in November. 

4. Total billed cost summary

This section shows the total CloudSpend charges for the selected period. In the image provided above, CloudSpend billed $1,928.902 across August to November 2025.

This includes charges based on the number of cost accounts added, data volume processed, and feature usage.

5. Table view

The table breaks down CloudSpend billing data by:

• Month: The applicable month name.
• Total Cost ($): The actual cloud cost parsed by CloudSpend from your cloud provider’s billing data. This reflects the total spend on your cloud services for the selected period.
• Billed Cost ($): The amount charged by CloudSpend for analyzing the above cost. Currently, CloudSpend charges 1% of the total cost as the usage fee.

You can sort the data or search for specific months. This view gives a clear picture of how your CloudSpend usage translates into billing. Click the desired month's Billed Cost to view a detailed billing data of your account.

Licensing details view

When you click on a Billed Cost value from the Licensing table, you’re taken to a detailed view showing how CloudSpend charges are distributed across different cost accounts and billing months. This screen helps you understand what specific accounts contributed to the total CloudSpend bill and how much each one was charged based on their usage.

Use the image below to understand each numbered section:

1. Bar chart with stacked costs

At the top, a stacked bar chart breaks down the billed cost across months and cost accounts. Each bar represents the total CloudSpend usage charges for a month.

Each colored segment in the bar corresponds to a different cost account. Hovering over a bar shows the combined billed cost for that period.

In the image provided above:

• July 2025 shows the highest CloudSpend charge at $ 593.51, with contributions from multiple accounts.
• August 2025 has a smaller charge of $15.59, indicating reduced usage or fewer active accounts.

You can visually compare account-level contributions and month-on-month changes in billed usage.

2. Legend

Just below the chart, there's a color-coded legend for all listed cost accounts. This helps match the chart segments to specific accounts. For example, in the image provided CloudSpend AWS account is marked in purple, Azure-test in blue, and so on. You can also select or deselect specific accounts to customize what data appears in the chart.

3. Total Billed Cost

Below the graph, the Total Billed Cost for the selected date range and account view is shown prominently (e.g., $609.100 as shown in the above image). This number reflects the sum of CloudSpend charges for all listed accounts and billing months.

4. Detailed table view

The lower section of the page shows a tabular breakdown of CloudSpend usage charges, with the following columns:

• Cloud Type: The cloud provider for the cost account (e.g., AWS, Azure, or GCP).
• Cost Account: Name of the account being billed.
• Billing Month: The month for which CloudSpend calculated the usage charges.
• Total Cost ($): The total cloud cost that CloudSpend analyzed for that account during that month.
• Billed Cost ($): The amount CloudSpend charged you for processing that account’s data.
• Status: Indicates whether the charge has been Paid or Not Paid.

You can filter by cloud type and also search by account name or month to narrow down the results.

This breakdown gives you full transparency into how your CloudSpend usage is priced and charged, account by account. You can also export or schedule reports for internal review or reconciliation.

Understanding the Billed Cost calculation

Here's an example to explain how CloudSpend’s billing works with calculation logic.

Let’s say you're analyzing your CloudSpend usage for July 2025. On the Licensing page, you see the following entry:

• Month: July 2025
• Total Cost ($): $85,640.00
• Billed Cost ($): $856.40

Here’s how this is calculated:

CloudSpend charges 1% of the total parsed cloud cost, which is provided directly from your cloud provider’s billing data. In this case:

Billed Cost = 1% of Total Cost

= (1 / 100) × 85,640

= $856.40

You click on the Billed Cost value to view the detailed breakdown. The drill-down view shows that this amount is distributed across three cost accounts:

All of these billed amounts are 1% of the actual monthly cloud spend for each account.

In addition to the above data, you can also view details such as Cost Account, Billing Month, and Status. This breakdown helps you validate CloudSpend charges, trace increases to specific accounts or workloads, and share accurate cost data with your finance or DevOps teams. For example, if the AWS account saw a jump in usage, it’s immediately reflected in both the total cost and the CloudSpend bill.

Related topic

Pricing details