Azure Cost CLI
This is a simple command line tool to get the cost of your Azure subscription. It uses the Azure Cost Management API to get the cost and output the results to the console, text, csv, markdown or JSON. E.g. so it can be used in a workflow to get the cost of your subscription and use it in subsequent steps.
Besides showing the accumulated cost, it can also show daily cost, extract resource (costs) and list budgets.
It can also detect anomalies and trends in the cost, which can be used to further automate reporting.
Installation
You can install this tool globally, using the dotnet tool command:
dotnet tool install --global azure-cost-cli Upgrading
When there is a new version available on NuGet, you can use the dotnet tool update command to upgrade:
dotnet tool update --global azure-cost-cli With a --version parameter, you can specify a specific version to install. Use the --no-cache parameter to force a re-download of the package if it cannot find the latest version.
Usage
You can invoke the tool using the azure-cost command. You can use the --help parameter to get a list of all available options. Some of the commands have additional parameters which can be shown by adding the specific command with the --help option.
azure-cost --helpWhich will show:
USAGE:
azure-cost [OPTIONS]
EXAMPLES:
azure-cost accumulatedCost -s 00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000
azure-cost accumulatedCost -o json
azure-cost costByResource -s 00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000 -o text
azure-cost dailyCosts --dimension MeterCategory
azure-cost budgets -s 00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000
azure-cost detectAnomalies --dimension ResourceId --recent-activity-days 4
azure-cost costByTag --tag cost-center
OPTIONS:
-h, --help Prints help information
--debug Increase logging verbosity to show all debug logs
-s, --subscription The subscription id to use. Will try to fetch the active id if not specified.
-o, --output The output format to use. Defaults to Console (Console, Json, JsonC, Markdown, Text, Csv)
-t, --timeframe The timeframe to use for the costs. Defaults to BillingMonthToDate. When set to Custom, specify the from and to dates using the --from and --to options
--from The start date to use for the costs. Defaults to the first day of the previous month
--to The end date to use for the costs. Defaults to the current date
--others-cutoff 10 The number of items to show before collapsing the rest into an 'Others' item
--query JMESPath query string. See http://jmespath.org/ for more information and examples
--useUSD Force the use of USD for the currency. Defaults to false to use the currency returned by the API
--skipHeader Skip header creation for specific output formats. Useful when appending the output from multiple runs into one file. Defaults to false
--filter Filter the output by the specified properties. Defaults to no filtering and can be multiple values.
-m, --metric ActualCost The metric to use for the costs. Defaults to ActualCost. (ActualCost, AmortizedCost)
COMMANDS:
accumulatedCost Show the accumulated cost details
costByResource Show the cost details by resource
costByTag Show the cost details by the provided tag key(s)
dailyCosts Show the daily cost by a given dimension
detectAnomalies Detect anomalies and trends
budgets Get the available budgets
regions Get the available Azure regions
When you do not specify a subscription id, it will fetch the actively selected one of the
az cliinstead.
If the application is not working properly, you can use the
--debugparameter to increase the logging verbosity and see more details.
This tool uses the Azure Cost Management API to get the cost. Not all subscriptions have access to this API. To check if your subscription has access, you can use the
az account subscription show --subscription-id yourid --query '[subscriptionPolicies.quotaId]' -o tsvcommand. Validate the resulting quota id with the ones on the Microsoft list to see if it is supported. Running the tool with the--debugparameter will also show the quota id that is used.
There is a pretty strict rate limit on the cost api; the calls are retried after a 429 is received, but it might take a while before the call succeeds as it honors the retry time out.
Authentication
To make the call to the Azure cost API, you do need to run this from a user account with permissions to access the cost overview of the subscription. Further more, it needs to find the active credentials and it does so by using the ChainedTokenCredential provider which will look for the az cli token first. Make sure to run az login (with optionally the --tenant parameter) to make sure you have an active session.
Use in a GitHub workflow
You can use this tool in a GitHub workflow to get the cost of your subscription and store the results in markdown as a Job Summary. This can be used to get a quick overview of the cost of your subscription. Have a look at the workflow in this repository for an example output.
name: Azure Cost CLI Workflow
on:
workflow_dispatch:
inputs:
az-subscription-id:
description: 'Azure Subscription ID'
required: true
jobs:
run-azure-cost-cli:
runs-on: ubuntu-latest
steps:
- name: Azure Login
uses: azure/login@v1
with:
creds: ${{ secrets.AZURE_CREDENTIALS }}
- name: Install Azure Cost CLI
run: dotnet tool install -g azure-cost-cli
- name: Run Azure Cost CLI
run: azure-cost accumulatedCost -o markdown --subscription ${{ github.event.inputs.az-subscription-id }} >> $GITHUB_STEP_SUMMARY
The last step output the markdown to the Job Summary. This can be used to show the cost of the subscription in the workflow summary. Use it on a schedule to get for example a daily overview. Alternatively you can use the -o json parameter to get the results in JSON format and use it for further processing.
Available commands
Accumulated Cost
This will retrieve the accumulated cost of the subscription. This is the total cost of the subscription since the beginning of the period specified. We will try to fetch the forecast as well and organise by location, type and resource group. You can use the different formatters to get the results in different formats.
azure-cost accumulatedCost -s 574385a9-08e9-49fe-91a2-27660d92b8f5This is the default command when you do not specify a command.
Cost By Resource
This will retrieve the cost of the subscription by resource. This will fetch the resource details including the meter information. It is up to the formatter how this is returned. Use the json formatter to get the full details.
azure-cost costByResource -s 574385a9-08e9-49fe-91a2-27660d92b8f5 -o jsonIf you are only interested in the cost of the resources, you can exclude the meter details using the --exclude-meter-details parameter.
azure-cost costByResource -s 574385a9-08e9-49fe-91a2-27660d92b8f5 --exclude-meter-detailsDo keep in mind that with the --metric you can either request the ActualCost or the AmortizedCost cost, but not both at the same time. The default is ActualCost.
A resource can be in multiple resource locations, like Intercontinental and West Europe. When you use --exclude-meter-details, the resource will be listed once and the locations will be combined.
You can parse out the resource name, group name and subscription id from the ResourceId field. The format is /subscriptions/{subscriptionId}/resourceGroups/{resourceGroupName}/providers/{resourceProviderNamespace}/{resourceType}/{resourceName}.
Cost By Tag
This will retrieve the cost of the subscription by the provided tag key(s). So if you tag your resources with, e.g. a cost-center or a creator, you can retrieve the cost of the subscription by those tags. You can specify multiple tags by using the --tag parameter multiple times.
azure-cost costByTag --tag cost-center --tag creatorThe csv, json(c) and console output will render the results, either hierarchically or flattened in the case of the csv export.
If you require more formatters, let me know!
Daily Costs
The daily overview fetches the cost of the subscription for each day in the specified period. It will show the total cost of the day and the cost per dimension. The dimension is the resource group by default, but you can specify a different one using the --dimension parameter.
For example:
azure-cost dailyCosts -s 574385a9-08e9-49fe-91a2-27660d92b8f5 --dimension ResourceLocation
The default dimension is the resource group.
azure-cost dailyCosts 
The above screenshots show the default console output, but the other formatters can also be used.
The available dimensions are: ResourceGroup,ResourceGroupName,ResourceLocation,ConsumedService,ResourceType,ResourceId,MeterId,BillingMonth,MeterCategory,MeterSubcategory,Meter,AccountName,DepartmentName,SubscriptionId,SubscriptionName,ServiceName,ServiceTier,EnrollmentAccountName,BillingAccountId,ResourceGuid,BillingPeriod,InvoiceNumber,ChargeType,PublisherType,ReservationId,ReservationName,Frequency,PartNumber,CostAllocationRuleName,MarkupRuleName,PricingModel,BenefitId,BenefitName
Detect Anomalies
Based on the daily cost data, this command will try to detect anomalies and trends. It will scan for the following anomalies:
- Cost that is stopped; although it is good that the cost is stopped, it might be an indication that something is wrong.
- Cost that is appearing; the cost was not there before and is now adding to the overall cost.
- A spike in cost; a deviation from the normal cost pattern
- A gradual increase in cost; so a service is growing in cost over time.
There are a number of settings you can use to finetune the detection.
--dimension ResourceGroupName The grouping to use. E.g. ResourceGroupName, Meter, ResourceLocation, etc. Defaults to ResourceGroupName
--recent-activity-days 7 The number of days to use for recent activity. Defaults to 7
--significant-change 0,75 The significant change in cost to use. Defaults to 0.75 (75%)
--steady-growth-days 7 The number of days to use for steady growth. Defaults to 7
--threshold-cost 2 The thresshold cost to use. Values lower than this are excluded. Defaults to 2.00
All the different formatters can be used to output the data, so you can further process it with the JSON or CSV output, send it via email with the text formatter, or use the markdown formatter to include it in a GitHub workflow. The console output will render the different anomalies in different and point out the moment in time where the anomaly was detected.
azure-cost detectAnomaliesBudgets
This will retrieve the available budgets for the subscription. It will show the current status of the budget and the amount of the budget. As well as listing the configured notifications.
azure-cost budgets -s 574385a9-08e9-49fe-91a2-27660d92b8f5 Regions
Retrieve a list of available regions. Besides the location and supported compliances, it will also show the available sustainability information.
azure-cost regionsNot all the formatters are supported for this command. Let me know if there is a need.
Filter
With the --filter option you can pass in one or more properties to filter on.
azure-cost --filter "ResourceGroupName=yourresourcegroup;myresourcegroup" --filter "owner=me" In the example above, we look for resources in either yourresourcegroup or myresourcegroup and having a tag named owner with the value me.
Filters are passed along to the Cost API, so less data is retrieved. Compared to the query, where the data is queried with a JMESPATH expression and can be projected as well.
Multiple filters are combined with an and expression, while the values are split by the ; and used as an or.
Query
Use the --query to specify a JMESPath expression. This allows you to filter the results. For example, to get the yesterday cost of the subscription, you can use the following query:
azure-cost -s 574385a9-08e9-49fe-91a2-27660d92b8f5 -o json --query "totals.yesterdayCost"Or to list only the resource groups:
azure-cost -s 574385a9-08e9-49fe-91a2-27660d92b8f5 -o json --query "ByResourceGroup[*].[ResourceGroup, Cost]"will output:
[["mindbyte-sand-api",28.94824],["rg-test",16.457219149662315],["rg-weu",0.252499694771765],["cloud-storage-westeu",0.183537445632]]For the JMESPath parsing, it uses the JMESPath.Net library. Not all constructions might be implemented yet. If you find a query that does not work, please open an issue with a reproducable path at their repo.
Timeframe
The default timeframe is the billing month to date. You can specify a custom timeframe using the --from and --to parameters and setting the -t custom. The timeframe is specified in the ISO 8601 format.
Other options are:
- BillingMonthToDate
- Custom
- MonthToDate
- TheLastBillingMonth
- TheLastMonth
- WeekToDate
These options are based on the types exposed by the query API.
Output formats
The tool supports multiple output formats. The default is Console which will output the results to the console. You can specify a different format using the --output parameter. The different commands generate different outputs using the specified formatter. The following formats are supported:
Console
The default output format. It will output the results to the console in a graphical way. For example the accumulated costs:
Json / JsonC
The Json format is great for further processing of the data. It will output the results in a JSON format to the console. Using the > operator, you can redirect the output to a file. Use jsonc to get a colorized output.
azure-cost accumulatedCost -s 00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000 -o json > cost.json{
"totals": {
"todaysCost": 0.521266170218092,
"yesterdayCost": 2.367501588413211,
"lastSevenDaysCost": 17.089367673307038,
"lastThirtyDaysCost": 30.887236456720686
},
"cost": [
{
"Date": "2023-04-01",
"Cost": 2.365348403419757,
"Currency": "EUR"
},
// snip
],
"forecastedCosts": [
{
"Date": "2023-04-13",
"Cost": 0,
"Currency": "EUR"
},
// snip
],
"byServiceNames": [
{
"ServiceName": "API Management",
"Cost": 19.524664,
"Currency": "EUR"
},
// snip
],
"ByLocation": [
{
"Location": "EU West",
"Cost": 30.68711937543843,
"Currency": "EUR"
},
// snip
],
"ByResourceGroup": [
{
"ResourceGroup": "rg-west-eu",
"Cost": 30.68711937543843,
"Currency": "EUR"
},
// snip
]
}Tip: Use the
--queryparameter here to manipulate the results, like filtering and projecting the data. Do keep in mind that it operates over the already fetched data.
Text
A simple textual format. It will output the results in a simple text format.
Azure Cost Overview for 574385a9-08e9-49fe-91a2-27660d92b8f5 from 01/04/2023 to 14/04/2023
Totals:
Today: 0,52 EUR
Yesterday: 2,37 EUR
Last 7 days: 17,09 EUR
Last 30 days: 30,89 EUR
By Service Name:
API Management: 19,52 EUR
Azure App Service: 5,32 EUR
Azure Monitor: 3,67 EUR
Container Registry: 2,06 EUR
Log Analytics: 0,17 EUR
Storage: 0,13 EUR
Key Vault: 0,00 EUR
Bandwidth: 0,00 EUR
By Location:
EU West: 30,69 EUR
Unknown: 0,20 EUR
US West: 0,00 EUR
US West 2: 0,00 EUR
Or when using the daily cost:
Daily Costs:
------------
Date Cost (EUR) Breakdown
01/06/2023 50,47 Virtual Machines: 12,09 (23,95%), Azure DevOps: 10,63 (21,06%), Azure App Service: 7,67 (15,19%), Storage: 5,84 (11,58%), Functions: 4,75 (9,41%), IoT Hub: 1,51 (2,99%), API Management: 1,48 (2,93%), Azure Cosmos DB: 1,47 (2,91%), App Configuration: 1,12 (2,23%), Container Registry: 0,94 (1,85%), Other: 2,98 (5,90%)
02/06/2023 61,89 Virtual Machines: 20,08 (32,45%), Azure DevOps: 10,81 (17,47%), Storage: 8,69 (14,03%), Azure App Service: 7,67 (12,39%), Functions: 4,75 (7,67%), IoT Hub: 1,51 (2,44%), API Management: 1,48 (2,39%), Azure Cosmos DB: 1,47 (2,37%), App Configuration: 1,12 (1,81%), Container Registry: 0,94 (1,51%), Other: 3,38 (5,46%)
03/06/2023 62,14 Virtual Machines: 20,08 (32,31%), Azure DevOps: 10,99 (17,69%), Storage: 8,69 (13,98%), Azure App Service: 7,67 (12,34%), Functions: 4,75 (7,64%), IoT Hub: 1,51 (2,43%), API Management: 1,48 (2,38%), Azure Cosmos DB: 1,47 (2,36%), App Configuration: 1,12 (1,81%), Container Registry: 0,94 (1,51%), Other: 3,45 (5,55%)
04/06/2023 62,08 Virtual Machines: 20,08 (32,35%), Azure DevOps: 10,99 (17,70%), Storage: 8,69 (13,99%), Azure App Service: 7,67 (12,35%), Functions: 4,75 (7,65%), IoT Hub: 1,51 (2,43%), API Management: 1,48 (2,38%), Azure Cosmos DB: 1,47 (2,36%), App Configuration: 1,12 (1,81%), Container Registry: 0,94 (1,51%), Other: 3,39 (5,45%)
05/06/2023 63,99 Virtual Machines: 21,51 (33,62%), Azure DevOps: 10,99 (17,18%), Storage: 8,95 (13,98%), Azure App Service: 7,67 (11,98%), Functions: 4,75 (7,42%), IoT Hub: 1,51 (2,36%), API Management: 1,48 (2,31%), Azure Cosmos DB: 1,47 (2,29%), App Configuration: 1,12 (1,76%), Container Registry: 0,94 (1,46%), Other: 3,60 (5,63%)
06/06/2023 71,25 Virtual Machines: 23,36 (32,79%), Azure DevOps: 10,99 (15,43%), Storage: 9,30 (13,05%), Azure App Service: 7,67 (10,76%), Functions: 4,75 (6,66%), Azure Cognitive Search: 4,09 (5,74%), IoT Hub: 1,51 (2,12%), API Management: 1,48 (2,07%), Azure Cosmos DB: 1,47 (2,06%), Load Balancer: 1,13 (1,58%), Other: 5,51 (7,74%)
07/06/2023 65,62 Virtual Machines: 23,35 (35,58%), Azure DevOps: 11,53 (17,58%), Storage: 9,28 (14,14%), Azure App Service: 6,87 (10,47%), Functions: 4,75 (7,24%), IoT Hub: 1,51 (2,30%), API Management: 1,48 (2,25%), Azure Cosmos DB: 1,47 (2,24%), App Configuration: 1,12 (1,71%), Load Balancer: 1,08 (1,65%), Other: 3,18 (4,84%)
08/06/2023 57,04 Virtual Machines: 21,94 (38,47%), Azure DevOps: 11,72 (20,54%), Storage: 9,23 (16,18%), Functions: 3,56 (6,25%), Azure App Service: 2,61 (4,58%), IoT Hub: 1,51 (2,65%), API Management: 1,48 (2,59%), Azure Cosmos DB: 1,46 (2,56%), SQL Database: 0,89 (1,56%), Azure Database for PostgreSQL: 0,71 (1,25%), Other: 1,93 (3,38%)
09/06/2023 4,51 Virtual Machines: 1,86 (41,19%), Storage: 1,54 (34,08%), Azure App Service: 0,33 (7,24%), API Management: 0,18 (4,09%), Azure Cosmos DB: 0,18 (4,00%), Virtual Network: 0,10 (2,24%), Load Balancer: 0,09 (2,09%), Azure Database for PostgreSQL: 0,09 (1,97%), SQL Database: 0,06 (1,40%), Container Registry: 0,04 (0,86%), Other: 0,04 (0,83%)
Csv
A CSV format. It will output the results in a CSV format which can be used in Excel or other tools. It will use the default culture of your system to format the numbers. If you combine the output of multiple runs into one file (like using the >> to append to a file), you can use the --skipHeader parameter to prevent the header from being written multiple times.
azure-cost accumulatedCost -s 574385a9-08e9-49fe-91a2-27660d92b8f5 -o csv > cost.csvDate,Cost,CostUsd,Currencycost
01/05/2023,"2,366588585885843","2,563252097372957",EUR
02/05/2023,"2,36675103555328","2,563428046607759",EUR
03/05/2023,"2,366643737168579","2,563311831727289",EUR
04/05/2023,"2,366407861778791","2,563056355092609",EUR
05/05/2023,"2,367958990965315","2,564736383114534",EUR
06/05/2023,"1,904236728129323","2,06247880023687",EUR
07/05/2023,"2,36694351092248","2,613934066287242",EUR
08/05/2023,"0,521257579853968","0,575650808311731",EUR
Markdown
A markdown format. It will output the results in a series of simple tables.
azure-cost accumulatedCost -s 574385a9-08e9-49fe-91a2-27660d92b8f5 -o markdown > cost.md# Azure Cost Overview
> Details for subscription id `574385a9-08e9-49fe-91a2-27660d92b8f5` from **01/04/2023** to **20/04/2023**
## Totals
|Period|Amount|
|---|---:|
|Today|0,00 EUR|
|Yesterday|1,27 EUR|
|Last 7 days|15,48 EUR|
|Last 30 days|45,84 EUR|
## By Service Name
|Service|Amount|
|---|---:|
|API Management|28,95 EUR|
|Azure App Service|7,89 EUR|
|Azure Monitor|5,51 EUR|
|Container Registry|3,06 EUR|
|Log Analytics|0,25 EUR|
|Storage|0,19 EUR|
|Key Vault|0,00 EUR|
|Bandwidth|0,00 EUR|
## By Location
|Location|Amount|
|---|---:|
|EU West|45,55 EUR|
|Unknown|0,30 EUR|
|US West|0,00 EUR|
|US North Central|0,00 EUR|
|US West 2|0,00 EUR|
## By Resource Group
|Resource Group|Amount|
|---|---:|
|mindbyte-sand-api|28,95 EUR|
|mindbyte-sand-azuremonitor|5,51 EUR|
|mindbyte-sand-registry|3,06 EUR|
<sup>Generated at 2023-04-21 07:40:23</sup>
Excluded in the above sample, but it will also include mermaidjs diagrams as well.
Iterate over multiple subscriptions
Since the tool operates on a single subscription only, you will need to loop over multiple subscriptions yourself. You can do this by using the az account list command and then using the --subscription parameter to switch between subscriptions.
az account list --query "[].id" -o tsv | while read -r id; do
echo "Subscription: $id"
azure-cost accumulatedCost -o markdown -s $id
doneOr using Powershell
az account list --query "[].id" -o tsv | ForEach-Object {
Write-Host "Subscription: $_"
azure-cost accumulatedCost -o markdown -s $_
}Or this snippet by @EEN421 to get the cost by resource for each subscription and append it to a single CSV file.
#Connect to Azure
Connect-AzAccount -UseDeviceAuthentication -Tenant xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxx
#Pull list of Subscriptions
$ids = Get-AzSubscription -TenantId xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxx| Select-Object id,name
$firstid = $ids | Select-Object -first 1
$remainingids = $ids | Select-Object -skip 1
#Create CSV for first subscription with header
$firstoutput = azure-cost costByResource -s $firstid.id -t Custom --from 2023-05-01 --to 2023-05-31 -o csv
Add-Content ".\report.csv" $firstoutput
#Loop through remaining subscriptions and append to CSV
Foreach ($id in $remainingids) {
$output = azure-cost costByResource -s($id.id) -t Custom --from 2023-05-01 --to 2023-05-31 -o csv --skipHeader
Add-Content ".\report.csv" $output
}Using the --skipHeader parameter is important here, otherwise you will get a header for each subscription which will mess up the output file as it will append the data to the same file.
Is there cost involved?
No, the calls to the Azure Cost APIs are free, although there are some rate limits in place. Avoid pulling data too often as it will only be refreshed every 4 hours.
Let's Connect!
I appreciate every star
For inquiries, suggestions, or contributions, feel free to open an issue or a pull request. You can also reach out to me directly via LinkedIn.
