End-of-month cost forecast per team, before the invoice
See where each team will land at month end, based on a forecast model, and investigate drifts while there's still time.
Runs in
Claude · Slack
First optimization recommendation
The next day
ROI
Pays for itself with the first recommendation you act on
Playbook
What the agent does
From what Costory notices to what you decide. Costory suggests the next step in conversation, and you decide whether to go ahead.
Costory notices
The forecast for a team moves materially.
Costory investigates
01
Budget lines
One line per team or product.
02
Forecast
TimesFM forecasts the end-of-month value for each line.
03
Compare
Forecast vs budget and vs last month.
04
Escalate
Alerts when forecasted spend drifts.
Where you see it
Claude
You decide
Finance updates the landing estimate; owners explain or act.
Why it matters
Finance wants a landing estimate on the 15th. Engineering doesn't have one until the 5th of the next month.
Who it’s for
Finance, FinOps leads, engineering managers
Where it runs
Claude · Slack
What you get
What lands in front of your team
A mid-month landing
A forecast finance can plan with.
Time to react
Drift spotted before month end.
Explained moves
Claude ties forecast changes to their drivers.
Sources and assistants
What it connects
Data sources
Example prompts
Or drive it yourself
FAQ
Questions about this playbook
How are forecasts generated?
Costory forecasts end-of-month values for each budget line with TimesFM by Google, and alerts can use actual or forecasted thresholds.
How long does this playbook take to set up?
Connecting your billing data and the Costory MCP takes under 30 minutes with Terraform or CloudFormation. The playbook itself takes minutes: pick the scope, the trigger and the Slack channel. The first billing data lands the next day, and the agent starts from there.
Can we adjust what the agent does?
Yes. You choose the trigger, the scope (team, service, environment), the channel and the format, and you can pause or change it at any time.
Does Costory change anything in our cloud accounts?
No. Costory reads billing exports and the metrics you connect, and has no write access to your cloud. Actions it takes create Costory objects only: alerts, reports, dashboards and events. Your team stays in control of every change.
Step-by-step guide in the Costory docs
Related playbooks
Run these alongside it
Costory notices
A team's forecast crosses a budget threshold.
Team budgets with forecast-based alerts
Monthly budgets per team, with Slack or email alerts when actual spend or the end-of-month forecast crosses a threshold.
See the playbook
Costory notices
The 3rd of every month.
Monthly budget vs actual review with engineering leads
A ready-made dashboard and monthly report with target, actual, forecast and delta per team, for the VP Infrastructure review.
See the playbook
Costory notices
Month n-1 freezes on the 10th.
Month-end close: allocated cloud costs ready for finance
Use Costory's frozen month-end numbers, allocated to cost centers, as the cloud input to your close.
See the playbook
Put this playbook on call
Included in every plan, from €250/month. 30-day free trial: connect in under 30 minutes, get your first optimization recommendation the next day.
First optimization recommendation
The next day
ROI
Pays for itself with the first recommendation you act on
Setup
About 30 minutes
Data residency
EU
Access
Read-only on your cloud