FinOps Budgets & Alerts¶

This document defines budget models, alerting rules, and their integration with SLOs and operational runbooks for ConnectSoft. It is written for operations engineers, SREs, finance teams, and product managers who need to understand how budgets are defined, monitored, and enforced.

Budget governance at ConnectSoft enables proactive cost management through threshold-based alerts, rate-of-change detection, and anomaly detection. Budget alerts trigger operational responses ranging from cost-saving mode activation to manual intervention, while maintaining SLO commitments for high-tier customers.

Important

Budget Alerts Trigger Actions: Budget alerts are not just notifications—they trigger operational responses. When budget thresholds are breached, cost-saving mode may be enabled, SLO targets may be adjusted (for low-tier users), or manual intervention may be required.

Budget Model¶

Budgets per Environment¶

Budgets are defined for each environment to control costs across the development lifecycle:

Dev Environment:

Lower budget (development and testing workloads)
Focus on cost efficiency in non-production
Alert thresholds may be more aggressive

Test Environment:

Moderate budget (automated testing workloads)
Balance between cost and testing needs
Alert thresholds similar to dev

Staging Environment:

Higher budget (pre-production validation)
Should mirror production as closely as possible
Alert thresholds similar to production

Production Environment:

Highest budget (customer-facing workloads)
Critical for business operations
Alert thresholds most conservative (avoid false positives)

Budgets per Product¶

Budgets are defined for each product to enable product-level cost management:

Factory:

Budget for Factory execution infrastructure
Includes agent runs, code generation, orchestration
Separate budgets for dev/staging/prod

Core Platforms:

Budgets for Identity, Config, Audit, Documents, Communications, Billing platforms
Shared infrastructure costs
Multi-tenant cost allocation

connectsoft.me:

Budget for personal agents platform
Includes AI usage, compute, storage
Separate budgets by environment

connectsoft.io:

Budget for marketing/CRM SaaS modules
Includes compute, storage, 3^rd-party APIs
Separate budgets by environment

Vertical Suites:

Budgets for Insurance, AdTech, HR/PeopleOps suites
Industry-specific cost profiles
Separate budgets by environment

Budgets per Large Tenant (Optional)¶

For high-volume enterprise tenants, optional per-tenant budgets may be defined:

When to Use:

Enterprise tenants with high usage
Tenants with custom pricing agreements
Tenants requiring cost visibility

Budget Types:

Soft caps (alerts and cost-saving mode)
Hard caps (service degradation or suspension)
Configurable per tenant agreement

See: Per-Customer / Per-Tenant Budget Guards for details.

Alerting Rules¶

Threshold-Based Alerts¶

Alerts are triggered at specific budget threshold percentages:

50% Threshold:

Severity: Info
Action: Notification to ops and finance teams
Purpose: Early warning of cost trends
Response: Monitor and review cost drivers

80% Threshold:

Severity: Warning
Action: Notification + cost review meeting
Purpose: Proactive cost management
Response: Review cost drivers, identify optimization opportunities, prepare cost-saving measures

100% Threshold:

Severity: Critical
Action: Immediate notification + cost-saving mode evaluation
Purpose: Prevent budget overrun
Response: Enable cost-saving mode (if applicable), manual intervention if needed

Alert Frequency:

Daily budget status reports
Real-time alerts when thresholds are breached
Weekly cost trend analysis

Rate-of-Change Alerts¶

Alerts are triggered when spending rate deviates significantly from baseline:

Daily Spend Spike:

Alert: "Daily spend is X times typical baseline"
Threshold: 2x typical daily spend (configurable)
Purpose: Detect sudden cost increases
Response: Investigate cause (new feature, bug, attack, scaling issue)

Weekly Trend:

Alert: "Weekly spend is X% above baseline"
Threshold: 20% above baseline (configurable)
Purpose: Detect gradual cost increases
Response: Review cost trends, identify drivers, plan optimizations

Baseline Calculation:

Baseline = average daily/weekly spend over last 30 days
Excludes known anomalies (deployments, special events)
Adjusted for seasonal patterns (if applicable)

Anomaly Alerts¶

Alerts are triggered when specific cost patterns deviate from normal:

Token Usage Spikes:

Alert: "Token usage per model/agent type is X times normal"
Purpose: Detect runaway AI usage
Response: Investigate agent behavior, check for infinite loops, review model selection

Queue Length / Job Count Spikes:

Alert: "Queue length or job count leading to cost surge"
Purpose: Detect scaling issues or processing bottlenecks
Response: Review scaling policies, check for processing failures, investigate bottlenecks

3^rd-Party API Spikes:

Alert: "3^rd-party API calls are X times normal"
Purpose: Detect API integration issues or abuse
Response: Review API integration, check for retry loops, investigate external service issues

Storage Growth Spikes:

Alert: "Storage growth rate is X times normal"
Purpose: Detect data retention issues or storage leaks
Response: Review data retention policies, check for storage leaks, investigate growth drivers

Link to SLOs & Operational Behavior¶

Cost-Saving Mode¶

When budget alerts hit, cost-saving mode may be enabled:

Actions Enabled:

Throttling - Reduce request rate for low-tier users
Lower-Priority Models - Switch to cheaper AI models
Slower Batch Processing - Increase batching to reduce API calls
Relaxed Latency Targets - Allow higher latency for free/low-tier users (within acceptable bounds)

When Cost-Saving Mode Applies:

Free-tier and low-tier tenants (SLO targets may be relaxed)
Non-critical workloads (background jobs, batch processing)
Off-peak hours (if applicable)

When Cost-Saving Mode Does NOT Apply:

Enterprise tenants (SLA commitments must be maintained)
Critical workloads (payment processing, authentication)
Production SLO commitments (cannot be relaxed)

See: FinOps Scaling Policies for cost-saving mode details.

SLO Target Adjustments¶

Budget constraints may trigger SLO target adjustments:

For Free/Low-Tier Users:

Latency targets may be relaxed (e.g., p95 < 1000ms instead of < 500ms)
Availability targets may be relaxed (e.g., 99.0% instead of 99.9%)
Error rate targets may be relaxed (within acceptable bounds)

For Paid/Enterprise Users:

SLO targets maintained (SLA commitments)
Cost-saving mode focuses on efficiency, not SLO relaxation
Alternative optimizations (model selection, batching, resource optimization)

SLO Adjustment Process:

Budget alert triggers cost-saving mode evaluation
Check tenant tier and SLA commitments
For free/low-tier: Relax SLO targets within acceptable bounds
For paid/enterprise: Maintain SLO targets, optimize efficiency
Monitor impact and adjust as needed

See: Operations Overview for SLO definitions.

See: Support & SLA Policy for SLA commitments.

Per-Customer / Per-Tenant Budget Guards¶

Internal Guardrails¶

Optional internal budget guards provide cost protection:

Free or Trial Tenants:

Soft Cap: Alert when internal cost limit approached
Hard Cap: Stop or degrade service when cost limit exceeded
Purpose: Prevent free/trial abuse from causing cost overruns
Response: Service degradation (throttling, reduced features) or suspension

Paying Tenants:

Soft Cap: Alert when configurable cost limit approached
Hard Cap: Configurable (may include service degradation or communication)
Purpose: Cost visibility and control for high-usage tenants
Response: Communication with tenant, cost optimization discussions, service adjustments if needed

Budget Guard Configuration¶

Free/Trial Tenants:

Default internal cost caps (e.g., $X per month)
Automatic service degradation when cap exceeded
Notification to tenant about usage limits

Paying Tenants:

Configurable soft/hard caps per tenant agreement
Communication before hard cap enforcement
Options for cap increases or usage optimization

Enterprise Tenants:

Custom budget guard configuration
Aligned with contract terms
Proactive cost management discussions

Integration with Runbooks¶

Incident Response Runbook¶

Budget alerts may trigger incident response procedures:

When Budget Alert = Critical:

Follow Incident Response Runbook procedures
Treat as Sev2 or Sev3 incident (depending on impact)
Engage ops team and finance team
Document response and postmortem

Cost Spike Investigation:

Use incident response procedures to investigate cost spikes
Root cause analysis for sudden cost increases
Postmortem for budget overruns

See: Incident Response Runbook for incident procedures.

Deployment and Rollback Runbook¶

Cost regressions from deployments may trigger rollback:

Cost Regression Detection:

Budget alerts may indicate cost regression from deployment
Compare pre/post deployment costs
Identify cost increase drivers

Rollback Decision:

If cost increase is significant and unexpected, consider rollback
Follow Deployment and Rollback Runbook procedures
Rollback if cost increase threatens budget or profitability

Post-Deployment Cost Review:

Review costs after each deployment
Identify cost regressions early
Update cost models and budgets based on learnings

See: Deployment and Rollback Runbook for rollback procedures.

Budget Alert Flow¶

The following diagram illustrates how cost metrics flow through budget evaluation to alerts and runbook actions:

flowchart TD
    A[Cost Metrics Collection] --> B[Budget Evaluation]
    B --> C{Budget Threshold?}

    C -->|50%| D[Info Alert]
    C -->|80%| E[Warning Alert]
    C -->|100%| F[Critical Alert]

    B --> G{Rate of Change?}
    G -->|Spike Detected| H[Rate-of-Change Alert]

    B --> I{Anomaly Detected?}
    I -->|Token Spike| J[Anomaly Alert: Token Usage]
    I -->|Queue Spike| K[Anomaly Alert: Queue Length]
    I -->|API Spike| L[Anomaly Alert: 3rd-Party API]

    D --> M[Monitor & Review]
    E --> N[Cost Review Meeting]
    F --> O[Evaluate Cost-Saving Mode]
    H --> P[Investigate Cause]
    J --> P
    K --> P
    L --> P

    O --> Q{Tenant Tier?}
    Q -->|Free/Low-Tier| R[Enable Cost-Saving Mode]
    Q -->|Paid/Enterprise| S[Optimize Efficiency]

    R --> T[Relax SLO Targets]
    R --> U[Throttle Requests]
    R --> V[Use Cheaper Models]

    S --> W[Model Selection Optimization]
    S --> X[Resource Optimization]

    T --> Y[Monitor Impact]
    U --> Y
    V --> Y
    W --> Y
    X --> Y

    Y --> Z{Issue Resolved?}
    Z -->|No| AA[Manual Intervention]
    Z -->|Yes| AB[Continue Monitoring]

    AA --> AC[Incident Response]
    AC --> AD[Postmortem]
    AD --> AE[Update Runbooks]

    AB --> A
    M --> A
    N --> A
    P --> A

Hold "Alt" / "Option" to enable pan & zoom

Flow Description:

Cost metrics are collected from infrastructure, agent runs, and 3^rd-party APIs
Budget evaluation checks thresholds, rate of change, and anomalies
Alerts are triggered at different severity levels (Info, Warning, Critical)
Critical alerts trigger cost-saving mode evaluation
Cost-saving mode behavior depends on tenant tier (free/low-tier vs. paid/enterprise)
Impact is monitored and adjusted as needed
If issues persist, manual intervention and incident response procedures are followed
Postmortems and runbook updates ensure continuous improvement

See: FinOps Cost Model for cost metrics collection.