Using Azure Cost Management API to Analyze Resource Group Expenditures by Cost Unit

Azure Cost Management offers various tools to track expenses and optimize costs across our tenants. Following are some features provided by Azure Cost Management

• Cost Analysis
• Budgets
• Cost Alerts
• Cost Allocation
• Exports
• Recommendations
• Multi-Cloud Support
• Governance and Accountability
• Integration with Power BI
• API

In this short article, I'll explain how to view expenditures for a specific resource group, broken down by the various meters Azure uses for cost calculation.

By analyzing the output, we can gain insights into how Azure calculates costs for our resources, ensuring there are no surprises when the bill arrives.

One way to achieve above is by using Cost Management, specifically within the Cost Analysis section.

However, I sometimes prefer using the Cost Management API over the Cost Analysis section because it offers greater flexibility and allows me to customize parameters to better achieve my objectives.

Following is the API I used

Request

#URL
https://management.azure.com/subscriptions/{Tenant ID}/resourceGroups/{Resource Group}/providers/Microsoft.CostManagement/query?api-version=2024-08-01

#METHOD
POST

#AUTHORIZATION
Bearer Token

#BODY
{
  "type": "Usage",
  "timeframe": "MonthToDate",
  "dataset": {
    "granularity": "None",
    "aggregation": {
      "totalCost": {
        "name": "PreTaxCost",
        "function": "Sum"
      }
    },
    "grouping": [
      {
        "type": "Dimension",
        "name": "ResourceType"
      },
      {
        "type": "Dimension",
        "name": "MeterCategory"
      }
    ]
  }
}

You can use this approach to generate an access token

Response

{
    "id": "subscriptions/{Tenant ID}/resourcegroups/{Resource Group}/providers/Microsoft.CostManagement/query/5c25de9e-06aa-4839-81b4-64273e0bc86f",
    "name": "5c25de9e-06aa-4839-81b4-64273e0bc86f",
    "type": "Microsoft.CostManagement/query",
    "location": null,
    "sku": null,
    "eTag": null,
    "properties": {
        "nextLink": null,
        "columns": [
            {
                "name": "PreTaxCost",
                "type": "Number"
            },
            {
                "name": "ResourceType",
                "type": "String"
            },
            {
                "name": "MeterCategory",
                "type": "String"
            },
            {
                "name": "Currency",
                "type": "String"
            }
        ],
        "rows": [
            [
                34.957915,
                "microsoft.apimanagement/service",
                "API Management",
                "AUD"
            ],
            [
                0.0016342144,
                "microsoft.keyvault/vaults",
                "Key Vault",
                "AUD"
            ],
            [
                0.036166705555556,
                "microsoft.loadtestservice/loadtests",
                "Azure Load Testing",
                "AUD"
            ],
            [
                0.034666562722667,
                "microsoft.operationalinsights/workspaces",
                "Log Analytics",
                "AUD"
            ],
            [
                0.000007542612,
                "microsoft.storage/storageaccounts",
                "Bandwidth",
                "AUD"
            ],
            [
                0.0001935796,
                "microsoft.storage/storageaccounts",
                "Storage",
                "AUD"
            ],
            [
                0.0,
                "microsoft.web/sites",
                "Azure App Service",
                "AUD"
            ],
            [
                0.000000359172,
                "microsoft.web/sites",
                "Bandwidth",
                "AUD"
            ]
        ]
    }
}

With these insights, I can identify the various meters used for my resources and see the expenditure associated with each meter.