On a schedule

See yesterday's AWS bill by service

Each morning you get yesterday's spend broken down by service, with costly ones flagged.

Runs: On a schedule
Apps: AWS
AI: Not needed
Access: ce:GetCostAndUsage

Send this to your assistant

Create a ClickRuntime automation: every day at 8am, email me yesterday's AWS cost by service, sorted highest first, and flag any service over $5.

Paste it into your assistant. It tells you what it will send or change before it runs live.

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First time? Adding ClickRuntime to your assistant takes about two minutes.

Why use it

Why teams use this automation

A small SaaS company runs its product on EC2, RDS, S3 and a handful of Lambda functions, and the AWS bill is the second largest expense after salaries. The invoice arrives once a month, and the Cost Explorer console is only opened when finance complains. A forgotten GPU instance or a runaway NAT gateway can quietly add several hundred dollars a day, and the team learns about it only when the total is already painful.

Every morning, ClickRuntime calls Cost Explorer for yesterday's spend grouped by service, sorts the services from most to least expensive and emails you the list. Any service above the threshold you set is flagged at the top, so you can spot an unusual line before it grows into a bad month.

It is meant for founders, CTOs and DevOps leads who want cost awareness without logging into the billing console.

What you get out of it

Waste is stopped after one day, not thirty
A forgotten instance costs a little on day one and a lot on day thirty. Seeing it in the first email lets you shut it down before it becomes a line item that needs explaining to finance.
Costs are tied to specific services
A single total tells you nothing. A breakdown showing that CloudWatch Logs doubled or data transfer climbed points your engineers to the exact component to investigate, saving hours of guesswork.
Month-end invoices stop being a surprise
When you have read the daily numbers all month, the final invoice matches what you expected. Budget conversations with finance become calm and factual instead of reactive. Finance conversations stay calm and based on numbers you already saw.
Engineering decisions get a price tag
A new feature that adds a managed database shows up in the next morning's spend. Teams learn the real running cost of architectural choices while changing course is still cheap.
Thresholds make the email actionable
Flagging only the services that cross your limit keeps attention on what matters. Instead of scanning twenty lines, you look at the two that need a decision. Your attention goes to the two lines that need a decision.

How it works

What happens, step by step

Every morning at 8, ClickRuntime asks AWS Cost Explorer what you spent yesterday.
It breaks the total down by service and sorts them from most to least expensive.
Any service over the threshold you set is flagged.
The day's total and the per-service list arrive in your inbox.

Before it runs live

Connect AWS

What you get

RunsOn a schedule

See yesterday's AWS bill by servicetoday, 9:00Succeeded

Email · Daily AWS costAWS cost 2026-10-18: $41.37 !! Amazon Relational Database Service: $18.90 Amazon EC2: $4.12

Build your own

Need it to work differently?

This template is a starting point. Copy the prompt and change it, or describe a different automation from scratch, with your own conditions, more apps or an AI step. Your assistant writes it, tests it and runs it on ClickRuntime.

Your own rules
Conditions, thresholds, filters and exceptions, written the way you'd explain them to a colleague.
Any number of apps
One automation can read from one app and update several others. Over 248 apps are ready, and anything with an API works too.
AI where it helps
Summaries, classification, extraction and drafts use ClickRuntime's built-in AI, with no extra key.
On a schedule or on each event
Runs as often as every 5 minutes, or the moment an app sends an event, and keeps track of what it already handled.

Changes you can ask for

Run it at a different time, more or less often, or only on weekdays
Add an AI step, for example to summarize, sort or draft a reply
Add another app, for example also send it to Slack
Combine it with other AWS steps into one automation

Under the hood

The code that runs this automation

This is the Python script that runs each time the automation starts. Your AI assistant writes it for you when you send the prompt, and you allow each step in your assistant. To change how the automation works, describe the change to your assistant and it updates the script for you. For every function it can use, see the script reference.

get_a_daily_aws_cost_email.pyexample

from datetime import date, timedelta
import boto3
from clickruntime import on_trigger, credentials, notify

REGION = "us-east-1"

def aws(service):
    return boto3.client(service, region_name=REGION, aws_access_key_id=credentials.secret("AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID"),
                        aws_secret_access_key=credentials.secret("AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY"))

FLAG_OVER = 5.0

@on_trigger
def run(event):
    day = date.today() - timedelta(days=1)
    result = aws("ce").get_cost_and_usage(
        TimePeriod={"Start": str(day), "End": str(date.today())}, Granularity="DAILY",
        Metrics=["UnblendedCost"], GroupBy=[{"Type": "DIMENSION", "Key": "SERVICE"}])["ResultsByTime"][0]["Groups"]
    costs = sorted(((g["Keys"][0], float(g["Metrics"]["UnblendedCost"]["Amount"])) for g in result), key=lambda x: -x[1])
    lines = [f"{'!! ' if c > FLAG_OVER else ''}{name}: ${c:,.2f}" for name, c in costs if c >= 0.01]
    notify.email_me(f"AWS cost {day}: ${sum(c for _, c in costs):,.2f}", "\n".join(lines))
    return {"total": sum(c for _, c in costs)}

FAQ

Common questions

Does Cost Explorer need to be enabled first?

Yes. Cost Explorer has to be turned on in the AWS Billing console, and its data can take up to a day to appear after activation. The IAM user or role used by ClickRuntime also needs permission for the ce:GetCostAndUsage action.

Are the numbers final for yesterday?

Not always. AWS can adjust charges for a day after the fact as usage is processed, so yesterday's figure may change slightly. For spotting trends and spikes the difference is small, and it is far more useful than waiting for the monthly bill.

Can it report on several AWS accounts?

If the credentials belong to a management account in AWS Organizations, Cost Explorer can return costs across linked accounts, and the email can group by account as well as by service. Otherwise, one flow per account sends each its own report.

What permissions does it need?

ce:GetCostAndUsage. Nothing else in your accounts is used.

Does it need AI?

No. It runs without AI, so it doesn't use your plan's AI allowance.

How many runs does it use?

One run each time it runs (on a schedule). Checks that find nothing to do and stop right away aren't counted.

Can I change how it works?

Yes. Describe the change to your AI assistant, for example a different schedule, channel or filter. It updates the automation, tests it and tells you what changed.

Daily