Navigating CloudZero

CloudZero is designed to get you to the answers you need quickly. This page walks you through the interface so you feel confident from your first login.

Find any tool in the left sidebar

Everything you need is in the left sidebar. The top section gives you direct access to the tools you use every day:

	What you can do
Explorer	See all your costs in one place, drill down to any resource.
Optimize	Find specific ways to reduce your cloud spend.
Anomalies	See when costs changed unexpectedly.
Analytics	Build and view Dashboards for reporting.
Dimension Studio	Organize costs by team, product, or any category visually.
Budgets	Set spending limits and get alerts when you approach them.
Notifications	View your cost anomaly alerts, weekly trends, and other notifications.
Settings	Manage connections, users, integrations, and organization settings.

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Select ‹ on the sidebar edge to collapse it to icons only, or click the split square icon at the top to hide it completely.

Read the cost graph and table

When you open Explorer, the first thing you see is the cost graph. It gives you an immediate answer to "what am I spending and is it changing?"

Total Cost at the top shows your spend for the selected period
Cost of Change (green or red) shows whether spend went up or down compared to the previous period
The stacked bar chart breaks down costs by the selected Dimension. Each color represents a group, identified in the legend below the graph.

Below the graph, the Results table ranks your spend with Total Cost, Cost of Change, and % of Change columns. Click any row to drill deeper into that category.

For details on interacting with the graph (clicking bars, legend items, zooming), see Graph interactions.

Change what you see with the toolbar

The toolbar at the top of Explorer is where you shape your query:

Control	What it does
Group By	Choose how to break down your costs (by team, service, account, or any Dimension).
Add Group By +	Add a second category for a nested breakdown.
Add Filter +	Focus on a specific subset (one team, one service, one region).
Time Range	Choose the period to analyze (last 7 days, last 30 days, custom dates).
Granularity	Set how detailed the graph is (Daily, Hourly, Weekly, Monthly).
Cost Type	Switch between different ways to measure the same spend (Real Cost, Amortized, Billed). Learn more.
Additional Features ( ⋮ )	Access Views, Anomalies and Events, and Create Insight.

For a full walkthrough of each control, see Grouping, Filtering, and Time Range.

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Select ‹ on the left side of the toolbar to collapse it (an orange Filters button appears to re-expand). When filters are active, click the up arrow near Clear All to tuck the filter bar away without losing your filters.

Get help without leaving CloudZero

Click the Guide (orange Map Icon) in the bottom-right corner of any page to open the in-app guide:

What's New: latest features and improvements, searchable
Shortcuts: keyboard shortcuts
Glossary: definitions of CloudZero terms
Help: links to documentation and support

You can drag the Help launcher anywhere on the page so it does not block charts, tables, or actions.

The (i) icons throughout the interface are tooltips. Click any of them for a quick explanation of that control or data point.

Customize your experience

Dark mode: Click the moon icon ( ☽ ) next to the CloudZero logo to switch to dark mode. Click it again to switch back.

Share what you see: As you change Group By, filters, time range, and other settings, the URL updates automatically. Copy it and send it to a colleague; they see exactly what you see.

Manage your settings

Select Settings in the left sidebar to expand the menu, or select All Settings at the bottom to see everything on one page. Settings are organized into three groups:

In Data Collections, you manage what data flows into CloudZero:

Cloud Connections: your cloud providers and SaaS platforms
Telemetry Streams: send your own metrics (like transactions or users) to measure cost per unit or allocate shared resources
Kubernetes Agents: agents in your K8s clusters
Snowflake Data Sharing: share cost data to your Snowflake account
Dimension Namespaces: separate Dimension definitions by team or workflow

In User Permissions, you control who can do what:

Roles: manage user Roles
Users: add, remove, and manage users
Manage Multiple Organizations: manage multiple CloudZero accounts from one place

In Preferences & Extensions, you configure integrations and personal settings:

API Keys: for the CloudZero API and integrations
SSO Integrations: single sign-on providers
App Integrations: Slack, Jira, and other tools
Views: create and manage Views
Personal Settings: display name, theme, chart colors, and email notifications

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Have questions or feedback? Reach out to your account manager.