When delving into your cloud expenses, the clarity of your cost reports is crucial. You may notice variances between the numbers in AWS Cost Explorer and those in Tailwarden’s Cost Reports. Don't be alarmed—these aren’t mistakes but rather a reflection of different reporting methods.
Total costs alignment
The overall total costs in AWS Cost Explorer and Tailwarden should align perfectly. However, the way AWS aggregates costs can sometimes be puzzling, especially when compared to Tailwarden’s more granular categorization.
AWS data transfer and EC2-other costs
Within AWS, "EC2-Other" is a broad category encompassing various costs such as EBS volumes, snapshots, elastic IP addresses, NAT gateways, data transfer, and more.
Tailwarden takes a distinct approach by not bundling these under "EC2-Other." We prefer to break them down for you, offering a detailed view of each cost type. This approach can make the data transfer costs seem higher in Tailwarden, but that's because we account for all data transfer expenses, including those typically grouped under EC2-Other by AWS.
Tax reporting
In AWS, taxes are compiled under one general category, making it challenging to discern the tax amount for each service. Tailwarden provides the capability to exclude tax per service, presenting a clearer picture of your untaxed costs per service. This detailed reporting allows you to fully grasp how taxes impact your total cloud expenditures.
Saving plans & reserved instances
AWS combines the financial benefits from Saving Plans and Reserved Instances into broad summaries, which can make it difficult to evaluate the benefits on a service-by-service basis. Tailwarden, however, breaks down these savings, assigning them to the respective services to give you a transparent view of how these cost-saving measures affect your specific services.
Conclusion
Any initial confusion from cost discrepancies is an opportunity to gain a better understanding of your AWS spending through Tailwarden's precise and detailed cost reporting. Our goal is to empower you with comprehensive insights, ensuring informed decision-making for your cloud investments.