Cost allocation tagging allows you to label AWS S3 buckets to more easily track usage and costs. Tags applied to S3 storage buckets help you organize or categorize billing as per tags. In order to use that you are required to sign up for AWS account bill with tag key values included. You can tag several resources with the same key tag and then you can configure billing to see the cost for that specific key tag.

This how to guide explains how to create tagging and to track billing for S3 buckets.

1. Create an S3 bucket as explained here.

2. Create a folder and upload some objects to the S3 bucket as explained here.

3. Click on the bucket and select “Properties” as shown above.

4. Select the tab “Tags”.

5. Click on “Add more tags” to enter the tags as per your organization policies and actual requirements.

6. Once all required tags are added, press the “Save” button. AWS S3 will determine if the tag can be added for that bucket. If there is a problem with a tag, an error message will be displayed. For example, if the key value is already in use or a key is missing its associated value. To delete a tag press the ‘X’ button next to tag and click save.

7. Once all tags are saved, your AWS billing will reflect the tags on the S3 Billing activity report.

8. To get the tracking based on tags, enable the cost allocation report as described below -

Go to AWS Account section with URL http://aws.amazon.com/account

9. Select “Billing Preferences” from the left menu and then select “Sign Up Now” next to “Cost Allocation Report”.

10. It will enable the cost allocation report.

11. Click on “Cost Allocation Report” on the bottom left menu.

12. Select the tab “Excluded”. It will list all the tags of your AWS account, including EC2, S3 services.

13. Select the tags that you want to track.  Click on “Include” button as shown above. Once the tags are selected, they will appear under the “Included” tab.

14. Enable the programmatic access of AWS billing as explained here.

15. Download the programmatic access activity file (in .csv format) from the location specified on the previous step.

16. The programmatic billing activity report will show cost as per tags. Below is a sample cost allocation report downloaded from an S3 bucket.

17. You filter the records according to your needs. Here, the Tag ‘project’ is also coming in the report.

All tags will appear as the last columns of the downloaded report.

Keywords: Amazon web services, Amazon AWS console, Amazon AWS instances, AWS S3, Amazon cloud computing, S3 storage, AWS cloud cost savings, Cloud cost efficient, S3 bucket, Cost allocation report