Bedrock Cost Attribution and Tracking
Track, allocate, and manage Bedrock inference costs across teams, products, and models. Bedrock charges per input/output token with model-specific rates.
Table of Contents
- Cost Attribution Approaches
- Application Inference Profiles
- IAM Principal-Based Attribution
- CloudWatch Usage Monitoring
- Budget Alerts
Cost Attribution Approaches
| Approach | Best For | Setup Effort |
|---|---|---|
| Application inference profiles + cost allocation tags | Per-product or per-team cost tracking in Cost Explorer | Medium — create profiles, tag, activate in Billing |
| IAM principal-based (CUR 2.0) | Per-developer or per-role attribution | Low — automatic in CUR 2.0, no Bedrock config needed |
| Model invocation logging + custom analytics | Fine-grained per-request analysis (token counts, latency, model) | High — enable logging, build queries |
For most teams, application inference profiles with cost allocation tags is the recommended approach. It provides clean cost breakdowns in Cost Explorer without custom analytics.
Application Inference Profiles
Setup Workflow
1. Create an Application Inference Profile
aws bedrock create-inference-profile \
--inference-profile-name "<TEAM_OR_PRODUCT_NAME>" \
--model-source "copyFrom=arn:aws:bedrock:<REGION>::foundation-model/<MODEL_ID>" \
--region <REGION> --profile <PROFILE>Note the returned inferenceProfileArn.
2. Tag the Profile
aws bedrock tag-resource \
--resource-arn <INFERENCE_PROFILE_ARN> \
--tags key=CostCenter,value=<COST_CENTER> key=Project,value=<PROJECT> \
--region <REGION> --profile <PROFILE>3. Activate Cost Allocation Tags
In the AWS Billing console (or via API), activate the tags as cost allocation tags. Tags take ~24 hours to appear in Cost Explorer after activation.
4. Use the Profile for Inference
Replace the base model ID with the inference profile ARN in application code:
response = bedrock_runtime.converse(
modelId="<INFERENCE_PROFILE_ARN>",
messages=[...],
inferenceConfig={"maxTokens": 1024}
)5. Verify in Cost Explorer
After 24–48 hours, filter Cost Explorer by the tag keys. Bedrock costs appear under Amazon Bedrock service, grouped by tag values.
IAM Principal-Based Attribution
CUR 2.0 automatically records the IAM caller identity for every Bedrock API call. No Bedrock-specific setup required.
To use: tag IAM roles/users with keys like department, costCenter, or project, then filter CUR 2.0 data by those tags. Works for per-developer tracking when each developer assumes a distinct IAM role.
Limitation: only tracks who made the call, not which product or feature triggered it. Use inference profiles for product-level attribution.
CloudWatch Usage Monitoring
Key metrics for cost monitoring (namespace AWS/Bedrock, dimension ModelId):
| Metric | Cost Signal |
|---|---|
InputTokenCount |
Input token spend (charged per token) |
OutputTokenCount |
Output token spend (higher per-token rate) |
InvocationCount |
Request volume |
CacheReadInputTokens |
Tokens served from cache (90% cheaper than standard input) |
CacheWriteInputTokens |
Cache write tokens (25% surcharge over standard input) |
Cost Analysis Script
python3 scripts/analyze-bedrock-costs.py --days <DAYS> --region <REGION> --profile <PROFILE>The script queries Cost Explorer for Bedrock spend grouped by usage type (model + token direction) over the specified period.
Budget Alerts
Set up AWS Budgets to alert when Bedrock spend approaches a threshold:
aws budgets create-budget --account-id <ACCOUNT_ID> \
--budget '{"BudgetName":"bedrock-monthly","BudgetLimit":{"Amount":"<AMOUNT>","Unit":"USD"},"TimeUnit":"MONTHLY","BudgetType":"COST","CostFilters":{"Service":["Amazon Bedrock"]}}' \
--notifications-with-subscribers '[{"Notification":{"NotificationType":"ACTUAL","ComparisonOperator":"GREATER_THAN","Threshold":80},"Subscribers":[{"SubscriptionType":"EMAIL","Address":"<EMAIL>"}]}]' \
--profile <PROFILE>This alerts at 80% of the monthly budget. Adjust threshold and notification targets as needed.
