Tags and cost allocation¶
Tags let you answer "who spends what". By labelling resources (by team, environment, customer or cost centre) you can split your bill along the lines that matter to your organisation, instead of looking at one undifferentiated total.
Why tag¶
A raw cloud bill tells you the total. Tags tell you the story behind it:
- attribute spend to a team, project, environment (prod, staging, dev) or customer,
- spot the untagged remainder that nobody owns,
- feed the cost dashboard group-by-tag view and per-tag breakdowns.
The Tags page¶
The Tags page lists your resources with their tags and an estimated monthly cost per resource, and summarises coverage for the organisation:
- tagged cost versus untagged cost,
- total cost, and
- a coverage percentage (share of cost that carries at least one tag).
Coverage is the number to watch. Low coverage means a large part of your spend cannot be attributed, so your allocation is only as trustworthy as the coverage is high.
Tagging resources¶
You can add tags to a single resource, or select several and apply tags in bulk. Bulk operations are idempotent: re-applying the same tag to resources that already have it is safe and does not create duplicates.
Work from the least covered, most expensive resources
Sort by cost and tag the biggest untagged resources first. A handful of large resources usually accounts for most of the untagged spend, so coverage climbs quickly.
Tag policy and compliance¶
An organisation can define a tag policy: a set of required tag keys (for example team, env, owner). OpenWatch then reports compliance, showing which resources are missing required keys, so you can enforce a consistent taxonomy rather than a free-for-all.
- Set or clear the required keys from the Tags page.
- Review the compliance summary to find non-compliant resources.
- Clearing the policy simply turns the requirement off.
A consistent taxonomy is what makes tags useful
Agree on a small, fixed set of keys and their allowed values before tagging at scale. env=prod and environment=production on different resources fragment your reports. Fewer keys, applied consistently, beat many keys applied sporadically.
Seeing cost by tag¶
Once resources are tagged, use the group-by-tag view on the cost dashboard to see spend per tag value, and the resource explorer to filter inventory by tag. Together they let you answer questions like "what did the staging environment cost this month" or "which customer drove the increase".
Availability¶
Tag features and their depth can depend on your plan; see Editions and plan limits.
Suggested workflow¶
- Decide on a small policy: a few required keys and their allowed values.
- Set the policy on the Tags page.
- Tag the largest untagged resources first, in bulk where possible.
- Track the coverage percentage until most of your cost is attributed.
- Review cost by tag on the dashboard, and re-check compliance regularly.