---
title: How to measure cost per unit
canonical: "https://cloudmonitor.ai/docs/how-to/how-to-measure-cost-per-unit/"
description: "Record what a cost group produces each month so its spend reads as a rate: cost per order, per active user, or as a share of revenue."
---

To turn a cost group's spend into a rate, tell CloudMonitor what that cost group produces and how
much of it there was each month. Cost is already known; the quantity is the half you supply.

:::note[Not everyone has this]
**Unit Economics** is an optional module. If you can't see it in the menu, it isn't switched on for
your workspace: ask an admin to turn it on under Settings ▸ Features.
:::

:::note[Cost group owners only]
You need to be an **Owner** of the cost group you're changing. Admins can manage every cost group.
Owners are set from **Manage team** on the cost group.
:::

Open **Cost Allocation ▸ Cost Groups**, choose the group, and go to its **Unit economics** tab.

## Step 1: Choose the quantity

**Add quantity** offers a choice of routes, and the first one is worth reading before you skip it:

- **Use a quantity already defined** attaches something another cost group is already tracking. Both
  groups then share one set of monthly values: you type the number once, and each group divides its
  own cost into it.
- **Create a new quantity** starts a fresh one.

Reach for the existing one whenever the number is genuinely the same number. Three teams each
creating their own "Monthly active users" gives you three figures that drift apart and cannot be
compared, and nothing in CloudMonitor will warn you that they were meant to match.

## Step 2: Name it, and name one unit of it

The name is yours. **One unit is called** is the word every label on the screen is built from, so it
is singular and lower case: `order` gives **Cost per order**, `customer` gives **Cost per customer**. The
form previews the tile as you type: you should never find out what your labels read like after
saving.

Pick something that grows as the cost group does more work. A staleness figure, a success rate or an
uptime percentage are all real measures, but a cost divided by one is a confident number that means
nothing.

**Report the rate per** exists for quantities where one unit costs a fraction of a cent. Reporting per
1,000 gives you `$0.40 per 1,000` instead of `$0.0004`, which is the difference between a figure
someone can act on and a row of zeroes.

**What kind of number** is **A count of things** or **A money amount**. Money quantities produce
percentages: cloud cost as a share of revenue, and the margin after it, and use your workspace
reporting currency, with no conversion.

If the quantity should also apply to other cost groups you own, tick them under **Also used by**.

CloudMonitor works out whether your months can be added together and states it back to you in plain
words. Orders add up across a quarter; active users do not, because the same person appears in every
month. Correct it inline if the inference is wrong for your business: the link to do so sits next to
the sentence.

## Step 3: Enter the months

Add value gives you the last twelve completed months as one form, saved as a single write. Fill in
what you have.

Do the backfill now rather than starting from this month. One data point is not a trend, and "is this
getting better or worse" is the whole reason for the screen. A year of history on day one is what
makes the first visit useful.

Re-entering a month replaces what was there rather than adding a second value, and the change is
recorded in the audit trail with the figure it replaced. If a month is genuinely unknown, leave it
empty: an empty month reads **No value** and is skipped, which is honest. A guess is not.

## Step 4: Read it

The headline names the month it answers for: the latest completed month that has a value. The current
month appears with its cost and quantity but no rate, marked **In progress**, because a whole month's
quantity over a part-month of cost reads far too cheap.

If the cost group tracks several quantities, choose which one leads from the row menu.

## What to expect afterwards

The rate is an average across the whole cost group for that month, not the price of one more unit.
Most cloud cost does not move with a single order. Use it to watch a team's efficiency over time; do
not use it to price a customer.

If the quantity is shared, changing its definition or its values needs ownership of every cost group
it feeds, so somebody else may have to make the change, and CloudMonitor will name the groups you
are missing.

## Related

- [Unit Economics](/docs/using-cloudmonitor/reports/unit-economics/): the roll-up across every cost
  group, and the rules that keep a rate honest
- [Inside a cost group](/docs/using-cloudmonitor/reports/inside-a-cost-group/)
- [How to create a cost group](/docs/how-to/how-to-create-a-cost-group/): cost has to reach the group
  before a rate means anything