Cost Explorer

Cost Explorer allows you to group your resources in ways that are more meaningful to your business needs.

Cost Explorer is the next-generation cost analysis interface in Harness Cloud & AI Cost Management (CACM). It provides a streamlined, modern experience for exploring and analyzing your multi-cloud spending through customizable views, advanced filtering, and flexible data visualization.

Cost Explorer is built on top of the existing Perspectives infrastructure but offers a redesigned user experience focused on faster exploration and easier view management.

To switch and use, jump directly to Switching between Cost Explorer and Perspectives.

Drilldown

Cost Explorer introduces a view-centric approach to cost analysis:

Views replace the traditional perspective concept with a more intuitive interface
Select any saved view from the View Selector dropdown
Quick access to recently used views
Seamless switching between views without page reloads

Views Explorer Drawer

Access all your views through the Views Explorer Drawer:

Cost Views Tab: Browse all available views organized by folders
Saved Reports Tab: Access previously saved reports
Quick Search: Find views by name across all folders
Folder Navigation: Browse views organized in folder structure

Advanced Filter Rule Builder

Create complex filter logic using the Advanced Filter Drawer:

Filter Operators

IN: Include only resources that exactly match the specified value
NOT IN: Include all resources except those that match the specified value
NULL: Include only resources where this field has no value (excludes resources with this field)
NOT NULL: Include only resources where this field has a value
LIKE: Include resources where the field partially matches a pattern (uses regular expressions)
- For exact pattern matching, use ^pattern$ syntax

Using the Rule Builder

Click "add advanced filter" o the filter chip to open the drawer
Add conditions using the field selector and operator dropdown
Add multiple conditions within a rule (AND logic)
Add multiple rules (OR logic between rules)
Click "Apply Filters" to execute

Inline Filter Chips

For simple filtering, use the inline filter chips:

Click "add" to add a new filter
Select field, operator, and values
Multiple filters are combined with AND logic
Click the chip to modify or remove
Switch to Advanced Filter for complex OR logic

Unit Costs

Track cloud cost per unit of business value - cost per customer, per transaction, per GB processed, or as a percentage of revenue. Unit Cost Metrics layer your business KPIs on top of Harness Cloud Cost Management so engineering, finance, and product teams can measure efficiency, not just spend.

A Unit Cost Metric is a saved, reusable computation that combines:

Your cloud and AI cost data (already in Harness CCM, sliced by any Perspective filter).
Custom business metrics that you ingest into Harness (e.g., active users, API calls, GB processed, revenue).

The result is rendered inside Cost Explorer as:

A summary card above the chart with the aggregate value for the current time range.
A chart overlay series plotted alongside the cost columns/lines, with its own axis formatted for currency or percentage.

Check Unit Cost Metrics documentation for more details.

Adding a Unit Cost Metric in Cost Explorer

Open a Perspective in Cost Explorer.
In the toolbar, look for the Unit Costs (N) picker next to filters.
Click + Add Unit Cost and configure the metric:
- Give it a display name.
- Choose a result type — Cost or Percentage.
- Configure the numerator (and optionally the denominator).
Apply the metric. It appears immediately as a chart overlay and summary card.
Click Save view to persist the metric set with the Perspective.

Up to 5 unit metrics can be attached to a single Perspective.

Configuring Operands

For each operand (numerator and denominator), choose one of:

Cost — Optionally add filters (cloud provider, account, service, label, etc.) to scope which cost goes into this side of the calculation. With no filters, the operand uses the Perspective's cost total. This kind tells Harness to use cloud or AI cost as the operand value, scoped to the current Perspective.
Metric — Select a registered business metric from the list. The metric's default aggregation is used unless overridden. This kind references a business metric you've already registered under Cloud Integrations → Unit Cost. (See the separate setup guide; Cost Explorer can only consume metrics that already exist.)
Formula — Combine multiple cost and/or metric inputs (see Formula Rules. Use this when no single Cost or Metric value is enough — e.g., chargeback splits, weighted blends, or "subtract one slice from another". Each input is itself an operand row and can be Cost or Metric but not another Formula
In the Formula bar you can input single-line text input where you write the expression using the input letters. Allowed syntax
- Operators: +, - between inputs.
- Multiplier: * followed by a positive numeric literal (e.g., * 1.5, * 0.25), applied to a single input.
- Parentheses: allowed for grouping.
- Each input must appear exactly once and in declaration order (a before b before c).

The cost portion of every metric in this drawer is automatically scoped to the current Perspective. Filters you add are applied on top of the Perspective's filters, not instead of them.

Without a denominator, the metric simply plots the numerator's value (useful when you want to track a filtered slice of cost alongside the main Perspective).

The ÷ Divided by divider appears between numerator and denominator when a denominator exists.
An × icon next to the denominator removes it, collapsing the card back to a single operand.
Division-by-zero / empty data is handled by the denominator's empty-value rule (for Metric kind) or simply skipped at that data point (for Cost kind).

Formula Rules

When you build a Formula operand, the expression is restricted to keep results deterministic and efficient:

Allowed operators: +, -, and * between an input and a numeric multiplier (e.g., a * 1.5).
Not allowed: division (/), or multiplying two inputs together (a * b).
Every declared input must appear in the formula exactly once, in declaration order.
Parentheses are allowed for grouping (e.g., (a * 2) + b - c).

Valid examples

a + b
a - b + c
(a * 0.7) + (b * 0.3)
a * 1.5 + b - c

Invalid examples

a / b           // division not allowed
a * b           // multiplying two inputs not allowed
b + a           // out of declaration order
a + a           // input referenced twice
a + b + b       // duplicate reference

Group By Options

You can create a Perspective for your resources using rules and filters. The filters are used to group the resources. The following are the supported filters:

Cost Categories: You can create a perspective by filtering based on the cost categories you have created. To create cost categories, see Use Cost Categories.
Generic:
- Region: Each AWS, GCP, or Azure region you're currently running services in.
- Product: Each of your active products with its cloud costs.
- Cloud Provider: Filter and group costs by the cloud service provider (AWS, GCP, Azure, or Kubernetes clusters) to analyze spending across different cloud platforms.
- Sub Account Id:
AWS: CACM allows you to view your AWS costs at a glance, understand what is costing the most, and analyze cost trends across all your Amazon Web Services:
Grouping Option
Description
Account
Cost by AWS account connected via Harness AWS Cloud Provider, showing account name and ID
Billing Entity
Distinguishes between AWS Marketplace transactions and other AWS service purchases (Learn more)
Instance Type
Cost by Amazon EC2 instance type (e.g., t2.micro, m5.large)
Line Item Type
Cost by charge type (Usage, Tax, Credit, etc.) (Learn more)
Payer Account
Cost by AWS account that pays for member accounts in an AWS Organization
Resource Id
Cost by unique AWS resource identifier (ARN), enabling granular tracking of individual resources like specific EC2 instances, S3 buckets, or RDS databases
Service
Cost by AWS service (EC2, S3, RDS, etc.)
Usage Type
Cost by specific resource usage measurement (e.g., BoxUsage:t2.micro(Hrs) for EC2 t2.micro instance hours)
GCP: Analyze your Google Cloud Platform costs across products, projects, and other dimensions:
Grouping Option
Description
Billing Account
Cost by billing account, allowing tracking across multiple linked projects
Product
Cost by GCP product (Compute Engine, Cloud Storage, BigQuery, etc.)
Project
Cost by GCP project
Resource Global Name
Cost by unique GCP resource identifier, enabling granular tracking of individual resources across your Google Cloud environment
SKU
Cost by specific SKU, representing the billable unit for GCP services
Azure: Analyze your Microsoft Azure costs across services, resource groups, and other dimensions:
Grouping Option
Description
Benefit Name
Cost by benefit applied to resources (Enterprise Agreement discounts, Azure Hybrid Benefit, etc.)
Billing Account ID
Cost by unique billing account identifier
Billing Account Name
Cost by billing account name
Charge Type
Cost by charge type (Usage, Purchase, Refund, etc.)
Frequency
Cost by charge frequency (OneTime, Recurring, UsageBased)
Instance ID
Cost by specific resource instance identifier
Meter
Cost by usage meter (Compute Hours, IP Address Hours, Data Transfer, etc.)
Meter Category
Cost by meter category (Cloud Services, Networking, etc.)
Meter Subcategory
Cost by meter subcategory (A6 Cloud Services, ExpressRoute, etc.)
Pricing Model
Cost by pricing structure (Pay-as-you-go, Reserved Instance, etc.)
Publisher Name
Cost by Marketplace service publisher
Publisher Type
Cost by publisher type (Microsoft/Azure, Marketplace, AWS)
Reservation ID
Cost by reservation instance identifier
Reservation Name
Cost by reservation instance name
Resource
Cost by specific Azure resource
Resource GUID
Cost by resource unique identifier
Resource Group Name
Cost by resource group
Resource Name
Cost by resource name
Resource Type
Cost by resource type (Virtual Machine, Storage Account, App Service, etc.)
Service Name
Cost by Azure service (Virtual Machines, App Service, DNS, etc.)
Service Tier
Cost by service tier (VMs, Dv3, Dsv3, etc.)
Subscription ID
Cost by subscription identifier
Subscription Name
Cost by subscription name
Tenant ID
Cost by Azure Active Directory tenant identifier, useful for organizations with multiple tenants
External Data Grouping Options: Analyze costs from external data sources that you've integrated with CACM:
Grouping Option
Description
Account ID
Cost by account identifier from external data sources
Account Name
Cost by account name from external data sources
Billing Account ID
Cost by billing account identifier from external systems
Billing Account Name
Cost by billing account name from external systems
Provider Name
Cost by provider or vendor name from external data
Resource
Cost by specific resource from external data sources
SKU
Cost by SKU or product identifier from external systems
Label: Each label that you assign to your AWS resources. You can select a label name to get more granular details of your label. For more information, go to Tagging your AWS resources. For tags to appear in the Perspective, you must activate the user-defined cost allocation tags in the AWS Billing and Cost Management console. For more information, go to Activating User-Defined Cost Allocation Tags. CACM updates the tag keys as follows:
- For the user-defined tags, user_ prefix is added.
- For the AWS system tags, aws_ prefix is added.
- The characters that do not follow regex [a-zA-Z0-9_] are changed to _.
- The tags are case-sensitive. If the tags are specified as UserName and username, then the number suffix _<Number>is added to the tag. For example, UserName and username_1.
Label V2: Preserves the original structure from AWS similar to how GCP, Azure and Cluster tags are stored. See Understanding the Difference: Label vs. Label V2 and Migrate from Label to Label V2.
[NEW] AI: Analyze costs for AI and machine learning workloads across providers:
Grouping Option
Description
Model
Cost by AI/ML model used (e.g., GPT-4, Claude, Llama)
Provider
Cost by AI service provider (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, etc.)
Sub Account ID
Cost by sub-account identifier for multi-tenant AI deployments
Sub Provider
Cost by sub-provider or specific API endpoint
Token Type
Cost by token type (input tokens, output tokens, training tokens)
[NEW] OpenAI: Analyze costs specifically for OpenAI API usage:
Grouping Option
Description
Model
Cost by OpenAI model (GPT-4, GPT-3.5-turbo, DALL-E, Whisper, etc.)
Project Id
Cost by OpenAI project identifier
Token Type
Cost by token type (prompt tokens, completion tokens, embedding tokens)
[NEW] Anthropic: Analyze costs specifically for Anthropic API usage:
Grouping Option
Description
Model
Cost by Anthropic model (Claude Opus, Claude Sonnet, Claude Haiku, etc.)
Organization ID
Cost by Anthropic organization identifier
Organization Name
Cost by Anthropic organization name
Project Id
Cost by Anthropic project identifier
Project Name
Cost by Anthropic project name
Token Type
Cost by token type (input tokens, output tokens, cache tokens)

Time Period & Granularity

Time Period Options

Last 7 Days
Last 30 Days
This Month
Last Month
Custom date range

Granularity Options

Daily: Day-by-day breakdown
Weekly: Week-over-week view
Monthly: Month-over-month comparison
Hourly: Available for Kubernetes cluster data within last 7 days

Preferences

General Preferences

Show Others: The default perspective graph displays only the top 12 cost items. Enable this option to group all remaining costs into an "Others" category, ensuring you see your complete spending picture.
Show Anomalies: Highlight unusual spending patterns or sudden cost changes in your visualizations. This feature makes it easy to spot potential issues or unexpected charges that may require investigation. The number of anomalies are shown on the Group By graph in a red triangle.

Show Negative Cost: Displays instances where discounts exceed the actual billing amount, resulting in negative cost values in your reports. Displays the negative cost with a dotted red bar and labels it as NegativeCost in the legend. To view it, please select "Group By" as None because in other Group Bys, it might not appear in the top 12 entries.

Cloud Provider Preferences

Configure cost calculation preferences per cloud provider:

AWS Preferences

Cost Type: Amortized, Net Amortized, Unblended, Blended, Effective, Lisy
Include Discounts: Toggle discount visibility
Include Credits: Toggle credit visibility
Include Refunds: Toggle refund visibility
Include Taxes: Toggle tax visibility

Azure Preferences

Cost Type: Actual, Amortized, list Actual, List Amortised

GCP Preferences

Savings Programs: Spend-based CUD discounts, Legacy spend-based CUD credits, Resource-based CUD credits
Other Savings: Promotional credits, Sustained use discounts (SUDs), Spending-based discounts, Subscription credits, Negotiated savings
Invoice Level Changes: Tax
Show GCP costs as: cost or list

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