Split shared infrastructure costs by actual usage
Allocate shared databases, networking and platform services to the teams that use them, based on real usage metrics.
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
A shared service's cost grows, or a new team starts using it.
Costory investigates
01
Identify shared lines
Find the services that serve several teams: databases, network, logging.
02
Pick a driver
Connections, queries, bytes or requests per team, from CloudWatch, BigQuery, Datadog or another metric source.
03
Split proportionally
Costory spreads each shared line by a usage driver from the metrics you already have (Datadog, Tsuga, BigQuery, Snowflake and more) and keeps the split consistent as usage moves. Doing this in a DIY setup means building and maintaining a metrics pipeline.
04
Report per team
The reallocated cost shows up in every team's reports and budgets.
Where you see it
Claude
You decide
Platform validates the usage driver before the split is published.
Why it matters
Shared Cloud SQL or RDS instances, NAT gateways and observability stacks end up in a platform budget that keeps growing while the teams driving it never see the cost.
Who it’s for
Platform teams, FinOps leads
Where it runs
Claude · Slack
What you get
What lands in front of your team
Shared costs owned
Platform stops absorbing everyone's usage.
Usage-based fairness
Teams pay for what they use, not a flat share.
Budgets that add up
Reallocated costs flow into team budgets and showback.
Sources and assistants
What it connects
Example prompts
Or drive it yourself
Split
Split our shared Cloud SQL instance across teams using query counts per database user.
Explain
Write a short note for team leads explaining how shared database costs are now allocated.
FAQ
Questions about this playbook
What if our tagging is incomplete?
Costory's Virtual Dimensions allocate with rules on accounts, projects, names and partial tags, so you don't need perfect tagging to start. Shared and untagged cost is reallocated dynamically using the metrics you already have (Datadog, Tsuga, BigQuery, Snowflake and more), and the allocation stays consistent as usage moves.
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
Daily, as Datadog usage and the EKS bill refresh.
Dynamic cost reallocation for EKS using Datadog usage
Split shared EKS cluster costs across teams in proportion to what each team's workloads actually use, measured in Datadog.
See the playbook
Costory notices
A shared API or platform bill lands without an owner.
Split shared API costs across teams with usage data
Allocate untagged or shared API costs, like a single LLM key or a shared data platform account, to teams based on actual usage.
See the playbook
Costory notices
The unallocated bucket grows above your threshold.
Allocate cloud costs without perfect tagging
Map accounts, projects, resource names and partial tags to teams with rules, instead of waiting for a tagging project to finish.
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