AWS Cost Explorer
Query AWS costs and usage details with flexible granularity - from service-level overview to detailed usage type breakdown.
Capabilities
- Query daily AWS costs by service (e.g., EC2, S3, OpenSearch, DocumentDB)
- Drill down to usage type details for specific services (e.g., instance types, storage, data transfer)
- Filter results by minimum cost threshold
- Support both relative dates (days ago) and absolute dates (YYYY-MM-DD)
- Output in human-readable table or JSON format
Usage
Quick Commands
To query costs, use the bundled script at scripts/cost_query.py:
# Query costs from 2 days ago (default) by service
python3 <skill-path>/scripts/cost_query.py
# Query yesterday's costs, show items > $5
python3 <skill-path>/scripts/cost_query.py --days-ago 1 --min-cost 5
# Query specific date
python3 <skill-path>/scripts/cost_query.py --date 2026-01-15
# Query specific service's usage breakdown
python3 <skill-path>/scripts/cost_query.py --service "Amazon OpenSearch Service" --min-cost 1
# Query all services with usage type details
python3 <skill-path>/scripts/cost_query.py --detailed --min-cost 5
# Output as JSON
python3 <skill-path>/scripts/cost_query.py --json --min-cost 5Script Options
| Option | Short | Description |
|---|---|---|
--days-ago | -d | Query N days ago (default: 2, i.e., day before yesterday) |
--date | Query specific date (YYYY-MM-DD format) | |
--min-cost | -m | Minimum cost threshold to display (default: 0) |
--service | -s | Query usage type breakdown for a specific service |
--detailed | Show all services with usage type breakdown | |
--json | -j | Output in JSON format |
Common Service Names
When using --service, use the exact AWS service names:
| Common Name | AWS Service Name |
|---|---|
| OpenSearch | Amazon OpenSearch Service |
| DocumentDB/MongoDB | Amazon DocumentDB (with MongoDB compatibility) |
| EC2 Compute | Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud - Compute |
| EC2 Other (EBS, NAT) | EC2 - Other |
| EFS | Amazon Elastic File System |
| S3 | Amazon Simple Storage Service |
| RDS | Amazon Relational Database Service |
| EKS | Amazon Elastic Container Service for Kubernetes |
| VPC | Amazon Virtual Private Cloud |
| Bedrock | Amazon Bedrock |
| Lambda | AWS Lambda |
| CloudWatch | AmazonCloudWatch |
Understanding Usage Types
Common usage type patterns:
| Pattern | Meaning |
|---|---|
BoxUsage:* | EC2 instance hours (e.g., BoxUsage:m7i.large) |
ESInstance:* | OpenSearch instance hours |
EBS:VolumeUsage.* | EBS storage (e.g., EBS:VolumeUsage.gp3) |
TimedStorage-ByteHrs | S3/EFS storage capacity |
DataTransfer-* | Data transfer costs |
NatGateway-* | NAT Gateway costs |
VpcEndpoint-* | VPC Endpoint costs |
*-input-tokens / *-output-tokens | Bedrock token usage |
Elastic*Usage | DocumentDB Elastic costs |
Prerequisites
- AWS CLI configured with appropriate credentials
- IAM permissions for
ce:GetCostAndUsage
Example Workflow
- First, get service-level overview:
python3 <skill-path>/scripts/cost_query.py --min-cost 5 - Identify high-cost services, then drill down:
python3 <skill-path>/scripts/cost_query.py --service "Amazon OpenSearch Service" --min-cost 1 - For comprehensive analysis, use detailed mode:
python3 <skill-path>/scripts/cost_query.py --detailed --min-cost 5