How to Attribute AWS Textract Costs for Environment Chargeback

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If you’re managing AWS costs with a centralized account setup, here are practical tips to help you allocate Textract expenses accurately.

First, it’s important to know that you can’t add cost tags directly to individual Textract API requests. AWS only allows tagging at the resource level during creation, not per API call. So, this means you can’t directly track costs for each API request in tools like Cost Explorer.

When external accounts assume roles in your main account to use Textract, the costs are attributed to your main account where the API calls happen. The originating account’s identity isn’t automatically visible in your cost reports, but you can find this information in CloudTrail logs.

For detailed cost tracking, AWS recommends a step-by-step approach using CloudTrail and Amazon Athena. Since you have different environments with separate versions and IAM roles (like role-dev, role-staging, role-prod), you can set up a process to capture and analyze usage. Here’s how:

– Use CloudTrail to record the role assumptions and adapter ARNs for each API call.
– Export this data into Amazon Athena for detailed analysis.
– Combine CloudTrail logs with your Cost and Usage Reports to build a customized model of costs.
– Allocate expenses based on which role was assumed and which adapter version was used per API call.

This method lets you understand and break down monthly costs across your environments, even though all spending appears under a single main account.

CloudTrail also logs details for each API request, including the session’s role ARN and the adapter used. You can access this info to analyze usage patterns and associate cost inferences by:

– Querying CloudTrail logs to see how often each role and adapter are used
– Merging this data with your cost reports
– Calculating the cost share for each environment based on actual usage

While AWS hasn’t announced plans for per-request cost tags specific to Textract yet, it’s a good idea to stay in touch with your AWS support or Technical Account Manager for updates.

The best way forward is to create a custom cost allocation system. Capture detailed usage info via CloudTrail, analyze it with Athena, and then connect your findings with your cost reports. This setup helps you see which environments are incurring costs and how much, providing clear insight into your expenses across a centralized account.

If you need help with this process, AWS support teams can provide guidance to set things up efficiently for your specific needs.