Cost Visibility Quick Start

this guide walks you through a complete flow for tracking and understanding cost in amberflo by the end, you will have a meter capturing usage a cost rate defining how usage translates into cost a workload for attribution spend data visible in the dashboard the goal is to get a working cost visibility loop keep it simple what you’ll build example use case you want to understand the cost of an internal system, such as a text processing pipeline you will create a meter to track usage define cost rates for that usage create a workload send usage attributed to that workload view resulting spend step 1 create a meter this is identical to the customer billing quick start navigate in the left navigation go to meters create the meter click create meter (top right) configure label example token usage or api requests api name auto generated no spaces allowed letters, numbers, hyphens, underscores max 50 characters description (optional) meter type select count dimensions (recommended) add dimensions that impact cost example model type (input, output) note workload is included by default you do not need to remove it click create step 2 configure cost rates navigate in the left navigation go to meters select your meter to open it click the rate tab click create meter rate (top right) configure the rate label example cost rates v1 description (optional) choose rate model option 1 per unit same cost for every unit example every request costs $0 01 option 2 per unit with dimensions (recommended) cost varies based on dimension values example input vs output usage different models with different costs build the rate table each row = a combination of dimension values each row has its own cost per unit example model type cost a input 0 001 a output 0 002 b input 0 003 notes you cannot remove workload from this page only include dimensions relevant to cost use add row to define combinations click save step 3 create a workload navigate in the left navigation go to workloads create click create workload (top right) fill in name example text processing pipeline workload id unique identifier letters, numbers, hyphens, underscores only click save step 4 send usage (with workload) navigate in the left navigation go to meters open your meter upload an event click event upload fill in customer leave blank workload select your workload value example 1000 dimensions must match values defined in your rate table example model = a type = input click ingest meter step 5 view spend navigate in the left navigation go to spend what to expect you should see spend month to date spend quarter to date spend year to date since this is your first data, these may be the same under overview top spend by workload your workload should appear top trending workloads your workload should appear if you do not see data amberflo does not automatically refresh dashboards refresh the page if data still does not appear confirm usage was sent with a workload selected confirm your dimension values match the rate table confirm a rate is configured on the meter what you just did you completed the full cost visibility loop metered usage defined cost logic attributed usage to a workload generated spend data what’s next from here, you can expand into more detailed dimension based cost models multiple workloads cost guards and alerts connecting cost with customer billing this is the foundation for understanding how your system consumes resources and where your costs come from