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Xplorr Quick Start Guide: First Cloud Cost Data in 15 Minutes

Xplorr Quick Start Guide

Section titled “Xplorr Quick Start Guide”

This guide gets you from zero to seeing your cloud cost data in Xplorr: a few minutes to sign up, a few more to connect a cloud account, then 10 to 30 minutes for the first sync.

Before you start

Section titled “Before you start”

You need:

  • A business email address. Free and personal email providers (Gmail, Yahoo and the like) are rejected at signup, and so are domains with no mail (MX) records.
  • Access to create read-only credentials in at least one AWS account, Azure subscription or GCP project.

The first person from a company to sign up creates its organization and becomes its admin. If someone at your email domain has already signed up, signup tells you so; ask them to invite you instead.

Step-by-step setup

Section titled “Step-by-step setup”

  1. Create your Xplorr account

    Go to console.xplorr.io and click Create one free under the sign-in form. Enter:

    • First name and Last name
    • Work email
    • Company name, which becomes your organization’s name
    • Your role, for example Platform engineer
    • Main cloud: AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, Kubernetes (any cloud or on premises), or something else
    • Password, at least 12 characters with an uppercase letter, a lowercase letter, a number and a special character

    Click Create account, then open the verification link Xplorr emails you. Verifying signs you in.

    Until your organization has connected one cloud account or Kubernetes cluster, the console opens only the setup wizard, Cloud Accounts, Kubernetes and your profile. Connecting real infrastructure is how a new signup is verified, and there is no demo data to show before it. See Connect within 14 days.

  2. Connect your first cloud account

    Go to Infrastructure → Cloud Accounts and click Connect account. Choose the provider, give the account a name, enter its ID, and paste its credentials into the Credentials (JSON) box. Fill template shows the shape for the provider you picked, and Test connection checks the credentials without saving them.

    • AWS: an IAM user’s access keys, or an IAM role. Connect AWS
    • Azure: a service principal with the Reader role on the subscription. Connect Azure
    • GCP: a service account key and a BigQuery billing export. Connect GCP

    Admins and members can connect accounts; viewers cannot. Credentials are checked before anything is saved, so a mistake shows up here rather than later.

  3. Wait for the first sync (10 to 30 minutes)

    The first sync starts as soon as the account is saved and pulls the last 90 days of costs. While it runs, the dashboard shows a Your data is syncing banner. You get an email when it finishes.

    To check progress, look at the account’s status in Infrastructure → Cloud Accounts. Active means it is connected and syncing normally; Error shows the reason underneath. After the first sync, every account syncs once a day at 02:00 UTC, and you can sync one on demand with the Sync button on its row.

  4. Explore the dashboard

    Once data lands, the dashboard shows the daily cost trend, your top services by cost, month to date spend by provider, budget status and recommendations. Before relying on the numbers, spend a minute on Data Health, which tells you whether the sync returned data and whether any days are missing.

  5. Optional: Connect Claude via MCP

    If you use Claude Desktop, Claude Code, or Claude.ai, you can query your cost data with natural language.

    Open Settings, and in the API Tokens section enter a name and click New token. Copy the token (starts with xplorr_); it is shown only once. See Create a token.

    Add the Xplorr MCP server to your Claude config:

    {
      "mcpServers": {
        "xplorr": {
          "url": "https://mcp.xplorr.io/mcp",
          "headers": {
            "Authorization": "Bearer xplorr_your_token_here"
          }
        }
      }
    }

    Then ask Claude: “What are my top 10 most expensive AWS services this month?”

    See the full MCP setup guide for platform-specific instructions.

Connect within 14 days

Section titled “Connect within 14 days”

An organization that signs up by itself has 14 days from verifying its first email address to connect a cloud account or Kubernetes cluster.

  • On day 7 and day 12, Xplorr emails a reminder with the date the period ends.
  • On day 14, if nothing is connected, the organization is suspended: its sessions end, and signing in, API tokens and the Slack bot stop working for it.
  • Nothing is deleted. Everything you set up is kept, and support can reopen the organization. Reply to any Xplorr email or contact support.

Connecting one account or cluster ends the deadline. Until then the API also refuses data and AI requests for the organization; connecting, syncing, Kubernetes cluster setup, Data Health and currency settings stay open. Organizations that existed before this rule are not affected.

Common first steps after setup

Section titled “Common first steps after setup”
  • Set a budget. Go to Cost Management → Budgets and click New budget. Start with a round number close to your current spend. Budget alerts guide
  • Connect more accounts. Add your other AWS accounts, Azure subscriptions and GCP projects for one view across all of them.
  • Invite your team. Admins can invite colleagues from Admin → Users. They join your organization and see the accounts they are granted.
  • Track credit grants. If a cloud account is running on promotional or sponsored credit, add it under Cost Management → Credits; note that a balance drawn from a shared pool (an Azure EA or MCA billing account) is only shown to someone who can already see the underlying account. Credits guide

Troubleshooting

Section titled “Troubleshooting”

Signup says to use a business email. The address is on the free email list, or its domain has no mail records. Sign up with your company address.

Signup says an organization already exists for your domain. Someone at your company signed up first. Ask them to invite you from Admin → Users.

“This organization is suspended because no cloud account was connected within 14 days of signing up.” Reply to any Xplorr email or contact support to have it reopened. Nothing was deleted.

The verification link expired or never arrived. Try to sign in at console.xplorr.io. The sign-in page tells you the email is not verified and offers Resend verification email.

“Your data is syncing” stays for more than an hour. Check the account’s status in Infrastructure → Cloud Accounts. If it shows Error, the reason is underneath it; the most common cause is a missing permission on the IAM user or role, service principal or service account.

The dashboard shows no data. Provider billing data lags up to 24 hours on AWS and 24 to 48 hours on Azure and GCP. On AWS, Cost Explorer must be enabled; on GCP, the BigQuery billing export must be on and have data.

What’s next

Section titled “What’s next”