The Forecast page is the primary place to review your cloud cost structure and understand how spending is trending across Cost Layers. Beyond the table itself, a set of controls in the top-right of the page give you flexible ways to look at the data — and clicking into any Actuals cell opens a detailed comparison panel.
Date Range
The calendar button in the top right controls the time window shown across the table and chart. Click it to open the date range picker.
The picker has two settings:
Granularity — toggle between Month and Quarter columns. Quarter view condenses the table, useful when reviewing longer time windows with your finance team.
Range presets — choose a common window with one click:
| Preset | What it shows |
|---|
| Last 6 months | Six months of actuals, ending with the most recent complete month |
| Next 12 months | The current month through the next 12 months of forecast |
| 3mo + 9mo | Three months of actuals plus nine months of forecast (default) |
| 6mo + 6mo | Six months of actuals plus six months of forecast |
| Current year | January through December of the current calendar year |
| YTD | January through the current month |
Display Options
The controls icon (the sliders icon, second from the right) opens two display settings that change how numbers are presented in the table.
Period Over Period Change
Adds a change indicator next to each monthly value, showing how the cost layer moved compared to the prior period.
| Option | What it adds |
|---|
| None | No change indicator (default) |
| Percentage | Shows the % change vs. the prior month or quarter |
| Absolute | Shows the dollar change vs. the prior month or quarter |
Show Cost Layer Value
Changes the numbers in the table from dollar amounts to a percentage view.
| Option | What it shows |
|---|
| None | Absolute cost in dollars (default) |
| As Percent of Total | Each cost layer as a share of total cloud spend |
| Percent of Parent Cost Layer | Each child cost layer as a share of its parent layer |
Chart Type
The chart icon (bar chart icon, third from the right) changes the visualization above the table.
| Option | Description |
|---|
| Layers (Stacked) | Stacked bar chart — each color represents a top-level Cost Layer, and heights show total spend per period. Best for seeing total cloud spend at a glance. |
| Line (Series) | Line chart — each Cost Layer is a separate line. Best for seeing trends within individual layers over time. |
| Area (% of total) | Area chart — shows each Cost Layer as a share of total spend. Best for seeing how the cost mix is shifting over time. |
Exporting Data
The download icon (rightmost button) exports the currently displayed forecast table.
Two formats are available:
- Export CSV — comma-separated file, compatible with any spreadsheet tool or data pipeline
- Export Excel — formatted spreadsheet, ready for sharing with your finance team
The export reflects your current view — including the selected date range, granularity, and any display options applied.
Cell Detail: Month-over-Month Comparison
Clicking any Actuals cell in the table opens a detailed comparison panel on the right side of the screen.
The panel shows the selected Cost Layer compared against the prior month. Because calendar months have different numbers of days, Cloud Capital normalizes spend to a 28-day equivalent so the comparison is fair — a 31-day month with the same daily run rate won’t look artificially higher than a 28-day month.
The comparison includes:
Month header — shows which two months are being compared, for example “February 2026 vs January 2026.”
Comparison bar — a visual bar showing how the two months compare. The prior month is shown at full width; the current month is scaled proportionally, with the percentage change labeled.
Daily Spend Average — the average daily spend for each month. The prior month’s value appears in parentheses, so you can see at a glance whether spending is trending up or down on a per-day basis.
Effective Savings Rate — the commitment savings rate for each month. This shows whether commitment coverage is improving or eroding month over month.
Daily cost chart — a bar chart of day-by-day amortized spend since the beginning of the comparison month. Useful for spotting specific days or events that caused cost spikes.
Top Services Comparison
Scrolling down in the panel reveals the Top Services Comparison table.
This table lists the AWS services that contributed most to spend in this Cost Layer, showing each service’s share of total cost for both months and the change between them. This is one of the fastest ways to understand why a cost layer moved — whether it was a specific service scaling up, a deployment that changed resource utilization, or a commitment change affecting net cost.
Cell detail is only available for Actuals columns. Forecast columns do not have month-over-month comparison data since they represent projected values rather than recorded spend.
