Budgets & Alerts
Set monthly spend limits per provider, configure alert thresholds, and get notified before costs run over budget.
What budgets do
A budget is a monthly spend limit attached to a single provider. Once set, StackSpend tracks spend against that limit throughout the month and fires alerts when spend crosses the 50%, 80%, and 100% thresholds. It also runs a daily forecast to warn you if projected end-of-month spend is on track to exceed the limit — even before a threshold has been crossed.
Budgets are independent per provider. You can set different amounts, currencies, and configurations for each one.
Setting a budget
There are two places to configure a budget:
- Providers page — click any provider, then edit the budget field directly on the provider detail panel.
- Settings → Budgets & alerts — manage all provider budgets in one place alongside threshold and notification settings.
Each budget has the following fields:
AWS · Monthly budget
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Amount | Monthly spend limit for this provider. |
| Currency | Currency for the budget amount. Spend is converted to this currency before comparison. |
| Exclude tax | Toggle on to compare budget against net spend only, excluding taxes and surcharges. |
| Active / inactive | Inactive budgets are saved but do not trigger alerts. Useful for temporarily pausing a limit without deleting it. |
Auto-budgets
If a provider has at least two weeks of spend history, StackSpend can automatically derive a suggested budget from the historical average monthly spend. This auto-budget is applied until you set a value manually — once you save a manual amount, the auto-budget is locked to that value and will not update automatically.
Threshold levels
StackSpend checks spend against three thresholds at each sync. Each threshold maps to a status colour and alert severity. All three can be customised in Settings → Budgets & alerts.
| Threshold | Default | Status | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| Watch | 50% | Grey / informational | Spend has reached half the monthly limit. Worth monitoring. |
| Amber | 80% | Amber / warning | Trending high — on current trajectory, the limit will likely be reached before month end. |
| Red | 100% | Red / exceeded | Budget has been exceeded. Immediate review recommended. |
Forecast-based alerts
In addition to threshold checks, StackSpend runs a daily forecast for each provider with a budget. If the forecast projects that spend will exceed the budget by month end, the provider status turns amber or red — even if no threshold has been crossed yet.
Forecast alerts are listed separately from threshold alerts in the Inbox and Tasks so you can distinguish a current breach from a projected one.
Where alerts appear
Budget alerts surface across all the same channels as anomaly alerts:
| Location | Details |
|---|---|
| Inbox — For you | Appears for the provider owner when a threshold or forecast alert fires. |
| Inbox — Needs attention | Appears for all workspace members when the provider has no assigned owner. |
| Tasks | Listed under the Alert task type. Assignable, commentable, and closeable like any other task. |
| Sent to all configured daily report recipients. | |
| Slack | Posted to the connected Slack channel. |
For details on routing, escalation, and notification settings see Alerts & Escalation.
Savings estimate
When you resolve an over-budget alert, StackSpend records the value in the Inbox savings bar with two numbers:
- Caught — the measured overspend that accrued while the alert was open (daily overspend × days the alert stayed open). A recorded fact, not an estimate.
- Estimated savings — a projection of the spend you avoided by fixing it: daily overspend × the projection horizon. This is the headline number, and the horizon is configurable.
Configure the projection horizon
The horizon is how long StackSpend assumes an unresolved overrun would have continued. The default is 14 days — deliberately conservative. Raise it for a more optimistic estimate, or lower it to be stricter.
Open Settings → Budgets & Alerts
Find the “Savings estimate” card
Set the projection horizon
Estimated savings = daily overspend × 14 days. Default 14. The measured “caught” overspend is unaffected.