CloudCostCompareExport estimates to CSV and the FOCUS layout
You can take an estimate or a catalog table into a spreadsheet or another tool. There are three downloads, each built in your browser, and nothing is sent to a server.
The three files
Plain CSV, on estimator results. One row per price line, a row for each service a cloud does not offer or cannot size, and a total per cloud. It includes the quantity, the unit, the unit price, the cost in US dollars and in your display currency, the working for the quantity and a link to the vendor’s price page. Use it to share an estimate or build your own charts.
FOCUS-aligned CSV, on estimator results. The same lines in a column layout that follows the names used by FOCUS, the FinOps Foundation’s open specification for cost and usage data. Use it if you want to load an estimate into a tool that reads that layout.
Catalog CSV, on each catalog table. The rows your filters currently show: provider, category, name, region, price per unit, the monthly price where it applies, size attributes, the source URL and the date it was read. This one is not in the FOCUS layout, because a catalog row is a list price, not a charge.
What “FOCUS-aligned” means here
The label is chosen on purpose. The column names follow FOCUS version 1.0, but the file has not been validated against the specification or a FOCUS checker, and an estimate has no invoice, account or billing period. So many columns are present and empty. Do not describe the file as FOCUS compliant.
What it does contain:
- Costs. The four FOCUS cost columns, billed, list, contracted and effective, hold the same figure for each line, because the estimate uses list prices and models no discount. They are estimates, not billed amounts.
- Identity. The provider and publisher name, the vendor’s region code and the vendor’s service name.
- Quantities. The monthly quantity and the vendor’s unit, in both the consumed and the pricing columns.
- Our own columns, prefixed
x_, for the status of a line, the working and the vendor price link.
What is empty on purpose: billing and sub-account ids, invoice issuer, billing and charge periods, resource ids and names, the service category, the region name and the SKU id. The service category and region name are left empty because the site’s own groupings do not map to the specification’s fixed values, and a wrong value is worse than none.
Gaps stay visible
A service a cloud does not offer, or that cannot be sized, appears as a row with an empty cost and a status saying why. It is never zero. Total rows are left out of the FOCUS file, since FOCUS rows are charges, but summing the billed cost per provider gives the estimate’s total for that cloud.
Choosing between them
- To read or share an estimate: the plain CSV.
- To feed a FinOps tool: the FOCUS-aligned CSV, after checking it suits the tool.
- To compare instance or storage prices: the catalog CSV.
Using real cost data
Your actual bill can also be exported in the FOCUS layout by some clouds and tools. Comparing it with an estimate in the same columns makes the check in how to read a cloud cost estimate easier. The wider habit of managing spend is in FinOps basics for small teams, and the catalog is described in how to use the price catalog.