Cloud Spend Visibility Starter Kit

You cannot control cloud spend you cannot attribute.

This starter kit installs a beginner-safe system to:

establish ownership for cloud spend
standardize tagging and allocation
build a reporting view that finance and engineering both trust
create a weekly cadence to fix drift

What you will produce

Cloud cost ownership model (who owns what)
Tagging standard (minimum required tags)
Cost allocation rules (what happens when tags are missing)
Weekly exceptions report and action loop
A simple “visibility definition of done”

Beginner-safe definitions

Account or subscription: the billing container where charges accumulate.

Resource: something you pay for in the cloud (compute instance, database, storage bucket).

Tag: a key-value label on a resource (for example: owner-team=platform).

Allocation: the rule for assigning cost when ownership is unclear.

Step-by-step install

Step 1: Define ownership in plain English

Decide how you assign ownership:

by product team
by platform team
by environment (prod, dev)
by business unit

Beginner-safe rule: every resource should map to an owner team.

Step 2: Define minimum required tags

Minimum tags (starter set):

owner team
environment (prod, stage, dev)
application or service
cost center (if finance requires it)

Do not overcomplicate. Start with tags you can enforce.

Step 3: Decide what happens when tags are missing

You need a default rule:

untagged spend goes to a catch-all cost center
owners are required to remediate within a set window (for example: 14 days)

The goal is to create behavior change, not shame.

Step 4: Install an exceptions report and action loop

Weekly (30 minutes):

top untagged spend
new vendors or services with unknown owners
spikes week over week
top cost drivers by owner team

Assign owners and deadlines.

Step 5: Define “visibility definition of done”

You can say this is installed when:

most spend is attributable to an owner team
untagged spend is trending down
exceptions get fixed quickly
finance and engineering agree on the baseline

Templates

Minimum tagging standard (copy/paste)

Copyable template (TEXT)
Minimum Cloud Tagging Standard

Required tags:
- owner_team
- environment
- application
- cost_center (if applicable)

Rules:
- New resources must include required tags at creation.
- Untagged resources are flagged weekly.
- Untagged resources must be remediated within 14 days.
- Repeated non-compliance triggers escalation to the owning director.

Weekly cloud cost review agenda (copy/paste)

Copyable template (TEXT)
Weekly Cloud Cost Review (30 minutes)

1) Untagged spend (top offenders)
2) Spend spikes (week over week)
3) New services or vendors with unclear ownership
4) Top cost drivers by owner team
5) Actions and owners