Budgets & Alerts
Set monthly spend limits and get notified before you exceed them.
Budgets let you define a maximum monthly AWS spend and receive an alert when you are approaching or have crossed it. You can create budgets at the organisation level (total spend across all connected accounts) or scoped to a single AWS account.
Creating a budget
Go to Organisation → Budgets (admin or operator role required) and click New Budget.
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Name | A label for this budget — e.g. "Production Monthly Limit" |
| Account | Leave blank for an org-wide budget, or select a specific connected account |
| Period | Monthly |
| Budget amount | Your maximum spend in USD |
| Alert threshold | Percentage of the budget at which to send a warning (default: 80%) |
Budgets are alerts, not hard limits
CostLens does not stop AWS resource usage when a budget is exceeded. It sends a notification so your team can act. To enforce hard limits with automated actions, use AWS Budgets Actions directly in the AWS Console.
How alerts work
After every billing sync, CostLens checks your current month-to-date spend against each active budget. When spend crosses the alert threshold, a spend threshold notification is sent to all members of the organisation.
Example: A $5,000 budget with an 80% threshold fires a warning when spend reaches $4,000.
The alert fires once per threshold crossing. It will not fire again unless spend drops below the threshold and crosses it again in a later sync.
Managing budgets
From the Budgets page you can:
- Edit — Change the name, amount, threshold, or active state
- Deactivate — Pause alerts without deleting the budget
- Delete — Permanently remove the budget
Deleting a budget does not affect any historical spend data or previously sent notifications.
Tips
- Start with an org-wide budget to catch unexpected total spend, then add per-account budgets for accounts with known fixed allocations.
- Set the alert threshold below 100% — for example 80% — to give your team time to act before the limit is hit.
- Pair budgets with the Cost Forecast feature to anticipate when you will hit your threshold before the billing cycle ends.