Getting Started with CloudPulse

Set up real-time AWS cost monitoring and alerts in under 10 minutes. Learn how to connect your AWS account, configure dashboards, and set up budget alerts.

schedule10 min readLast updated: January 15, 2026

check_circlePrerequisites

check_circleAn AWS account with billing access
check_circleIAM permissions to create roles

menu_bookIn This Guide

1.Introduction

CloudPulse provides real-time visibility into your AWS spending. Unlike AWS Cost Explorer which has a 24-48 hour delay, CloudPulse shows you costs as they happen, helping you catch runaway spending before it impacts your budget.

Key features: - Real-time cost tracking (< 5 minute delay) - Custom dashboards by team, project, or service - Budget alerts via Slack, email, or PagerDuty - Cost anomaly detection with ML-powered insights - Savings recommendations based on usage patterns

2.Step 1: Create an IAM Role

First, you'll need to create an IAM role that CloudPulse can assume to read your billing data. This role has read-only access to Cost Explorer and billing information.

Create a new IAM role with the following trust policy:

json

{
  "Version": "2012-10-17",
  "Statement": [
    {
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Principal": {
        "AWS": "arn:aws:iam::123456789012:root"
      },
      "Action": "sts:AssumeRole",
      "Condition": {
        "StringEquals": {
          "sts:ExternalId": "YOUR_EXTERNAL_ID"
        }
      }
    }
  ]
}

3.Step 2: Attach the Required Policy

Attach the following policy to give CloudPulse read access to your cost data:

json

{
  "Version": "2012-10-17",
  "Statement": [
    {
      "Sid": "CloudPulseReadAccess",
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Action": [
        "ce:GetCostAndUsage",
        "ce:GetCostForecast",
        "ce:GetReservationUtilization",
        "ce:GetSavingsPlansUtilization",
        "ce:GetRightsizingRecommendation",
        "budgets:ViewBudget",
        "budgets:DescribeBudgets"
      ],
      "Resource": "*"
    }
  ]
}

4.Step 3: Connect Your Account

In CloudPulse, navigate to Settings > AWS Accounts and click "Add Account". Enter your AWS Account ID and the ARN of the role you created. CloudPulse will verify the connection and begin ingesting data.

Initial data sync takes approximately 5-10 minutes. After that, costs are updated in real-time.

5.Step 4: Configure Your Dashboard

CloudPulse automatically creates a default dashboard showing: - Total spend (MTD and projected) - Top 10 services by cost - Day-over-day cost trends - Anomaly alerts

You can customize this by adding widgets for specific services, tags, or cost allocation categories. To track costs by team, ensure you have cost allocation tags enabled in AWS Billing.

6.Step 5: Set Up Alerts

Budget alerts help you stay on top of spending. Configure alerts in Settings > Alerts:

1. **Budget Threshold Alerts**: Notify when spending reaches 50%, 80%, 100% of budget 2. **Anomaly Alerts**: ML-powered detection of unusual spending patterns 3. **Daily Digest**: Summary email with key metrics and changes

Alerts can be sent to Slack, email, PagerDuty, or webhooks.

yaml

# Example alert configuration
alerts:
  - name: "Production Budget Alert"
    type: budget_threshold
    threshold: 80
    budget: 50000
    channels:
      - slack:#cloud-costs
      - email:team@company.com

  - name: "Anomaly Detection"
    type: anomaly
    sensitivity: medium
    channels:
      - pagerduty:cloud-team

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