FOCUS column
EffectiveCost
The amortized cost of the row: the billed amount with upfront and recurring commitment purchases spread over the usage they cover, so that discounted usage carries its share of the commitment and the purchase row itself is not double-counted. It is the figure that fairly represents what a period’s consumption cost.
Example
The same $12,000 reservation shows $1,000 of EffectiveCost in each of twelve months, attached to the usage rows the reservation covered.
Where it comes from, per export
The export column that feeds EffectiveCost in each format the platform ingests, and the transform applied. A format with no row does not carry the column; the value is then absent rather than guessed.
| Export | Source column | Transform |
|---|---|---|
| AWS Data Exports, FOCUS | EffectiveCost | cast to decimal |
| Azure Cost Management, FOCUS export | EffectiveCost | cast to decimal |
| Azure Cost Details (actual cost) | CostInBillingCurrency | cast to decimal |
| Azure Cost Details (amortized cost) | CostInBillingCurrency | cast to decimal |
| Google Cloud detailed billing export | cost | cast to decimal |
How Runcost uses it
Runcost allocates EffectiveCost to consumers for showback and chargeback, so a team that benefits from a commitment pays its share and no team pays for the purchase twice.
Related columns
About this reference
Generated from the column contract and provider rules that Runcost runs, and written by Faisal Saleem, Founder. The normative definitions are in the FinOps Foundation’s FOCUS specification at focus.finops.org.