Budget planner

Overview

Budget planner in Cost Analyzer helps you plan and forecast Azure spending by analyzing historical cost trends and projecting future costs. You can define planned cost targets or apply growth percentages to estimate future spending and compare projections with actual costs before budget overruns occur.

Business value

Budget planning based only on historical spending often results in unexpected cost overruns. Budget planner provides finance and cloud operations teams with a forward-looking view of Azure costs, enabling them to:

• Set realistic spending targets.
• Identify budget deviations early.
• Take corrective action before budgets are exceeded.
• Reduce manual budget planning through forecasting and automated alerts.

Prerequisites

Required permissions

Access to Budget planner is controlled by the Budget planner permission:

When assigning a custom role, enable Monitoring under Specify feature permissions in role management. Then turn on Budget planner under Specify monitoring tab permissions.

How it works

Budget planner is a tab in the Monitoring section of a cost group, between Custom monitors and Incidents. To open it, select the cost group in the tree view, click Monitoring, and then click Budget planner. The tab displays a chart plotting three series over a selectable time window: actual cost as bars, planned cost as a line, and a forecast range as a shaded area. The legend reads Actual cost, Planned cost, and Forecast. The default window spans six months back and six months forward from today.

Four KPI cards appear above the chart: Total cost, Avg cost/day, Planned total cost, and Planned avg cost/day. Each card has a sub-label. Total cost shows a percentage versus planned with an up or down arrow, which tells you whether actual spend is over or under the planned budget for the period, or "No planned cost to compare" when no plan exists. Avg cost/day shows "Actual daily average", Planned total cost shows "From the budget plan", and Planned avg cost/day shows "Planned daily average".

You can filter the chart by time range or cost metric using the filters in the chart card header, and then click Apply. Time range presets include This Quarter, Last Quarter, This Year, Last Year, Last 3 months, Last 6 months, Last 12 months, and a custom date range. The metric filter offers Actual cost or Amortized cost; the default is Amortized cost. Click Export image to download the chart as a PNG image that includes the KPI cards. Click Refresh in the Monitoring action row at the top right to rerun the cost query.

For months with no saved configuration, Budget planner predicts planned cost using the average growth rate of the preceding three months' actuals. When you add a new configuration row, it pre-populates from the previous entry (same type and value, shifted one month forward), or defaults to 10% growth if no previous entry exists.

Budget planner compares the current month's amortized cost against the planned budget, starting on day 3 of the month. An alert is sent to the configured channels when either of the following exceeds the planned budget:

• Actual cost to date: the amortized cost accumulated so far in the current month.
• Estimated month-end cost: the month-to-date cost divided by the number of days elapsed, multiplied by the number of days in the month.

Spend that equals the planned budget does not trigger an alert. Alerts are evaluated only for months with an explicitly saved budget configuration. Months covered only by the Apply for future months toggle, and planned costs that Budget planner predicts automatically, do not trigger alerts. The ML forecast range is not used for alert evaluation.

Each cost group receives at most one alert per calendar month, sent on the first breach. Editing the budget after an alert has been sent does not trigger another alert that month. If you save a configuration for the current month after day 3 and no alert has been sent yet, a later breach still triggers the alert.

ML-powered forecasting

ML-powered forecasting uses historical spend patterns to project a range of possible outcomes for upcoming months. The forecast is based on actual cost data available for each month and does not incorporate planned costs or growth percentages you have configured. Instead of a single estimate, you see an upper and lower bound. This helps you gauge budget risk before it materialises.

Forecasting is available for the current and future months only. Past months show actual cost data and are not eligible for forecast overlays.

Each forecast range includes:

• Upper limit: the high-end projection, based on optimistic spending trends
• Lower limit: the low-end projection, based on conservative or risk-prone trends

The chart overlays both upper and lower forecast bounds on historical cost data for the selected period, with the current date dividing the actual-cost view from the projected range.

Steps

Use the following steps to configure projected costs or growth rates and set up monitoring alerts in Budget planner. Select the relevant cost group in the tree view, and then go to Monitoring > Budget planner to get started.

Configure projected costs or growth rates

Configuring a planned cost or growth rate overlays a projected spend line on the cost trend chart, giving your team an early warning when costs exceed the target.

1. Select the required cost group in the tree view and click the Monitoring tab.
2. Click the Budget planner tab.
3. Click Configure in the Monitoring action row at the top right to open the configuration panel.
4. Click + Add config, choose the target month, and enter either a planned cost amount or a growth percentage relative to the previous month.
5. Optionally, add a note for context or justification, and toggle Apply for future months on the latest entry to carry the configuration forward automatically.
6. Click Save to apply the configuration and overlay the projected cost line on the chart.

Each saved configuration is recorded on the Change history tab of the Monitoring section. See Monitoring change history.

Configure monitoring alerts

Configuring monitoring alerts enables Budget planner to notify your team automatically when the current month's actual cost or estimated month-end cost exceeds the planned budget.

1. Click Configure in the Monitoring action row at the top right of the Budget planner tab.
2. In the Notification settings section, enter a recipient email address and select an email template.
3. Select one or more notification channels from the list (Teams, Slack, PagerDuty, Webhook, Jira, and others).
4. Click Save.

Alerts are sent to the configured channels once per month, when actual or estimated month-end cost first exceeds the planned budget for a month with a saved configuration.

Configuration

Budget planner configuration is defined per calendar month per cost group. Each entry sets either a fixed planned cost or a month-over-month growth percentage. Notification settings are saved together with budget entries.

Permission behavior

Budget planner features vary based on the permission level assigned in the cost management group.

Without Read access, the Budget planner tab does not appear in the Monitoring section. With Read access but without Manage access, the Configure button is not shown.

Manage access requires Read to be enabled first.

Example scenario

A cloud operations team notices Azure spending has increased by 10% month over month due to workload growth. To prepare for additional service onboarding, they configure a 25% projected growth rate for the affected cost group.

Budget planner immediately overlays the projected cost trend using a red line, allowing the team to compare projected and actual spending. When actual or estimated month-end spend exceeds the planned budget during the month, an alert is triggered, enabling the team to investigate before the billing cycle ends.

Limitations

• Budget planner is scoped per cost management group. There is no cross-group or organization-wide budget rollup.
• The forecast range is not displayed for cost groups with a scope applied.
• The budget alert fires at most once per calendar month per group, even if the budget is edited after the alert is sent. Evaluation begins on day 3 of the month. No alert is sent earlier in the month.
• No budget alert is sent for months without an explicitly saved configuration, including months covered only by the Apply for future months toggle.
• The recipient email address and email subject fields in notification settings are only available in SaaS deployments. Private-hosted deployments can still configure notification channels.
• The Apply for future months toggle is only available on the latest-dated configuration row and cannot be applied retroactively.
• Growth-percentage predictions for months with no saved configuration use the trailing three months of actual data only.
• An active Cost Analyzer license is required.

Troubleshooting

1. The Budget planner tab is not visible in the Monitoring section
   Cause: Your role does not have Read permission for Budget planner on the cost group.
   Fix: Ask your administrator to turn on Budget planner under Specify monitoring tab permissions in role management for the cost group.

2. Planned cost configuration is not reflected in the chart
   Cause: The configuration may not have been saved, or the selected month does not match the chart's active time range.
   Fix: Confirm the configuration was saved and that the chart time range includes the configured month.

3. Alerts are not being received after the budget is exceeded
   Cause: Notification channels may not be configured, the current month may have no explicitly saved budget configuration, or an alert may already have been sent this month.
   Fix: Open the Budget planner configuration panel, confirm a configuration is saved for the current month, verify the notification channels are selected under Notification settings, and click Save. Only one alert is sent per group per month.

4. Forecasting is not visible on the chart
   Cause: Forecasting only applies to the current and future months. If the selected time range is entirely in the past, no forecast overlay is shown.
   Fix: Extend the time range to include the current or a future month.

5. The Configure button is not visible on the Budget planner tab
   Cause: Your role has Read permission but not Manage permission for Budget planner. Cost Analyzer hides Configure when you do not have Manage permission.
   Fix: Ask your administrator to select Manage for Budget planner under Specify monitoring tab permissions in role management.

FAQs

1. What cost type is used for budget calculations?
   Amortized cost is used for budget calculations. You can use actual cost for trend review without affecting budget calculations.

2. Can I configure planned values for multiple months?
   Yes. Each month is configured individually. Click + Add config in the configuration panel for each month you want to target, and enter the planned cost or growth percentage for that month.

3. Who can configure Budget planner for a cost group?
   Users with Manage access to the cost group can configure planned costs, growth rates, and alerts. Users with Read access can view cost trends but cannot make changes. Account owners, Owners, and Contributors have full access by default.

Related articles

• Initial setup
• Cost management groups
• Automatic anomaly detection
• Managing escalation policies
• Group budget monitoring
• Managing monitoring incidents
• Monitoring change history