Cost Analytics

AWS Doctor focuses on contextual cost analysis. Instead of just showing raw numbers, it helps you understand how your spending is evolving.

Comparative Workflow

To get a side-by-side comparison of your spending, use the cost subcommand:

aws-doctor cost

This triggers the Comparative Workflow, which includes a per-service breakdown (EC2, S3, etc.) to help you identify specific cost drivers.

Fairness in Comparison

Traditional billing comparisons (like Month-over-Month) are often misleading. Comparing the 15th of October to the full month of September will always look like a “saving,” even if you are spending more.

AWS Doctor solves this by comparing identical time windows:

• Current Period: 1st day of the month → Today.
• Previous Period: 1st day of the previous month → Identical day last month.

Example: If today is Oct 15th, it compares Oct 1-15 vs Sept 1-15.

6-Month Trend Analysis

To spot long-term growth patterns or sudden architectural shifts, use the trend subcommand:

aws-doctor trend

Filtering by Service

You can now focus your trend analysis on specific AWS services by passing them as arguments to the trend subcommand. This is useful for monitoring the cost evolution of a single service or a group of services.

# Analyze cost trend for EC2 and S3 only
aws-doctor trend ec2 s3

You can pass multiple services separated by spaces or commas.

Available Service Shorthands

AWS Doctor uses intuitive shorthands for filtering. Each shorthand maps to its official AWS Cost Explorer service name:

What it shows:

• A high-fidelity ANSI bar chart in your terminal.
• Monthly total costs for the last 6 completed billing cycles.
• Clear indicators of whether your spend is accelerating or stabilizing.