Cost Estimation and Visibility

Audience: DevOps engineers and platform teams who want to understand the monthly cost of infrastructure before deploying it.

Overview

strata integrates with Infracost to provide cost estimates for Terraform-based deployments. Cost estimation is separate from the build pipeline β€” builds stay offline and deterministic.

strata build run -f deploy/prd.yaml      # generates terraform (offline, no cost)
strata cost show -f deploy/prd.yaml      # estimates cost (calls Infracost)
strata deploy run -f deploy/prd.yaml     # deploys (also shows cost diff in --dry-run)

Prerequisites

Install Infracost:

# macOS
brew install infracost

# Windows
choco install infracost

# Linux / download binary
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/infracost/infracost/master/scripts/install.sh | sh

Verify the installation:

infracost --version

Infracost uses the same cloud credentials already configured in your environment (Azure CLI, AWS env vars, GCP application credentials). No extra authentication is needed.

Quick Start

# 1. Build terraform artifacts
strata build run -f deploy/prd.yaml

# 2. Initialize terraform (required for Infracost)
cd build/production-1.0.0/terraform
terraform init
cd -

# 3. Show cost estimate
strata cost show -f deploy/prd.yaml

Example output:

──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
πŸ’° Cost Estimate β€” provisioner: terraform
──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────

Resource                                          Monthly
───────────────────────────────────────────────── ──────────────
azurerm_kubernetes_cluster.aks                    2,100.00
azurerm_postgresql_flexible_server.postgres       1,202.40
azurerm_container_registry.acr                      200.00
azurerm_key_vault.keyvault                           12.00
───────────────────────────────────────────────── ──────────────
Total                                             3,514.40

Supported Providers

Cloud

Support

Azure

βœ… Full

AWS

βœ… Full

GCP

βœ… Full

Hetzner

❌ None

Kamatera

❌ None

For unsupported providers, the cost command skips gracefully with no error.

Commands

strata cost show

Runs infracost breakdown on terraform build artifacts and displays a cost table.

strata cost show -f deploy/prd.yaml
strata cost show -f deploy/prd.yaml --currency EUR
strata cost show -f deploy/prd.yaml --provisioner terraform
strata cost show -f deploy/prd.yaml --output json
strata cost show -f deploy/prd.yaml --refresh   # bypass local cache

Results are cached in .strata/cache/cost/ for 7 days. Use --refresh to force a fresh estimate.

A cost.json file is written alongside platform.json in the build directory (build/{deployment}-{version}/cost.json) after each successful estimate.

strata cost diff

Shows the cost impact of a terraform plan (how much the planned changes add or remove).

# First, create the plan JSON:
terraform -chdir=build/production-1.0.0/terraform \
  plan -out=plan.tfplan
terraform -chdir=build/production-1.0.0/terraform \
  show -json plan.tfplan > plan.json

# Then diff:
strata cost diff -f deploy/prd.yaml --plan-file plan.json

Example output:

──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
πŸ’° Cost Diff
──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────

  Before: 0.00/month
  After:  3514.40/month
  Delta:  +3514.40/month

strata cost history

Shows historical cost snapshots. Snapshots are recorded automatically every time strata cost show runs successfully.

strata cost history -f deploy/prd.yaml
strata cost history -f deploy/prd.yaml --last 20
strata cost history -f deploy/prd.yaml --output json

Example output:

──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
πŸ’° Cost History β€” production (last 3 snapshots)
──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────

Date (UTC)             Version    Monthly           Delta
────────────────────── ────────── ────────────────  ────────────
2026-07-20 08:00:00    1.0.0       3514.40 USD               β€”
2026-07-21 14:30:00    1.0.1       3702.20 USD          +187.80
2026-07-22 10:15:00    1.0.2       3514.40 USD          -187.80

History is stored at .strata/cost/{deployment}.cost-history.json (up to 50 entries).

Cost During Deploy (--dry-run)

When running strata deploy run --dry-run, strata automatically shows a cost diff after the terraform plan step β€” if Infracost is installed and cost.json is available. This is non-fatal: if Infracost is not installed or the cost cannot be computed, the dry-run continues normally.

strata deploy run -f deploy/prd.yaml --dry-run

  β–Ά  [DRY-RUN] Stage: infrastructure  [terraform]
    setup
    check
    plan
    plan JSON β†’ build/production-1.0.0/terraform.tfplan.json
    πŸ’° Cost impact:  0.00 β†’ 3514.40/month  (delta: +3514.40)

Cost Policy (cost_threshold)

Add a cost_threshold policy to your configuration to block or warn on deployments that exceed a monthly cost limit.

# config/configuration.yaml
spec:
  policies:
    # Block production deployments over €10,000/month
    - name: prod_cost_gate
      type: cost_threshold
      phase: plan
      enforcement: deny
      configuration:
        max_monthly: 10000
        currency: EUR

    # Warn when dev environments exceed €500/month
    - name: dev_cost_cap
      type: cost_threshold
      phase: plan
      enforcement: warn
      configuration:
        max_monthly: 500
        environment_pattern: "dev*"
        currency: EUR

The policy reads from the pre-computed cost.json in the build directory. Run strata cost show before strata deploy to generate the cost file.

See Policy Types for full configuration reference.

Configuration Reference

Integration entry (configuration.yaml)

spec:
  integrations:
    - name: infracost
      type: infracost
      capabilities: [cost]
      required: false        # graceful degradation if not installed
      validation:
        command: infracost --version
        min_version: "0.10.0"
      authentication:
        method: cli           # uses existing cloud credentials

Add this to the configuration for deployments using Azure, AWS, or GCP. Infracost is already included in the built-in azure-aks, aws-eks, and gcp-gke templates.

Troubleshooting

Problem

Solution

No cost estimator available

Install Infracost: https://www.infracost.io/docs/install

Terraform not initialized

Run terraform init in the build directory first

No build artifacts found

Run strata build run first

No terraform provisioners

Check workspace YAML has a terraform provisioner

Estimate seems stale

Use --refresh to bypass the 7-day cache

cost.json missing for policy

Run strata cost show before strata deploy

Provider not supported

Infracost only covers Azure, AWS, GCP β€” Hetzner/Kamatera return no estimate