# Cost Management Basics — AWS

Source: https://www.geekswithgeeks.com/en/aws/aws-cost-management

> Budgets, alerts, and visibility so spend doesn't surprise you.

## AWS Budgets

**AWS Budgets** lets you set a spending threshold and get notified (email/SNS) as actual or forecasted cost approaches it — your early warning system.

## Cost Explorer at a glance

**Cost Explorer** visualizes historical spend, filterable by service, region, or tag — helping you spot which resource is actually driving the bill.

## Tag everything

Tag resources with a project, team, or environment label from day one. Without tags, Cost Explorer can only show totals — not who or what is responsible.

**Quiz:** You want an early email warning before monthly spend exceeds $100. What should you set up?

- [x] An AWS Budget with a notification threshold
- [ ] A new IAM policy
- [ ] A CloudFront distribution

*Answer:* An AWS Budget with a notification threshold. AWS Budgets is built exactly for setting a spend threshold and getting notified as it's approached.