Cloud Cost Notification Preferences

import { Steps } from ‘@astrojs/starlight/components’;

Cloud Cost Notification Preferences

Xplorr sends notifications to keep you informed about cost changes, sync status, and alerts. You control what you receive and where it goes.

Email notifications

Every Xplorr user receives email notifications at their account email address. Here’s what can be sent:

Notification	When it fires	Default
Welcome	After account creation	On (one-time)
Sync complete	After a successful data sync from your cloud provider	Off
Sync failed	When a sync fails (e.g., credentials expired, permission denied)	On
Anomaly detected	When a cost anomaly is flagged (severity-dependent)	On
Budget alert	When spend crosses a budget threshold	On
Projected overrun	When the forecast projects a budget overrun	On
Weekly digest	Every Monday — summary of last week’s spend, trends, and open recommendations	On
RI/SP expiration	30 days before a reserved instance or savings plan expires	On

Slack notifications

If your org has a Slack webhook configured, these notifications also go to your Slack channel:

Notification	When it fires
Anomaly alert	When a medium, high, or critical anomaly is detected (low-severity anomalies are email-only)
Budget alert	When spend crosses a budget threshold
Weekly digest	Every Monday — condensed version of the email digest
Sync failed	When a sync fails (so your on-call team sees it)

Slack messages include actionable context — the anomaly explanation, the budget amount and current spend, or the specific sync error — so your team can respond without opening the console.

Setting up a Slack webhook

1. In Slack, go to api.slack.com/apps and create a new app (or use an existing one).

2. Go to Incoming Webhooks and toggle it on.

3. Click Add New Webhook to Workspace and pick the channel where you want Xplorr notifications.

4. Copy the webhook URL. It looks like:

   https://hooks.slack.com/services/T00000000/B00000000/XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

5. In the Xplorr console, go to Settings → Notifications → Slack.

6. Paste the webhook URL and click Test Connection. You should see a test message appear in your Slack channel.

7. Click Save.

Per-user notification preferences

Each user in your organization can control their own notification preferences. Go to Settings → Notifications in the console:

• Toggle each notification type on or off
• Email notifications are per-user — turning off anomaly emails only affects your inbox, not other team members’
• Slack notifications are org-wide — they go to the configured channel regardless of individual preferences

Recommended configuration by role

Role	Anomaly	Budget	Weekly digest	Sync status
Engineering lead	On	On	On	Off
Finance / FinOps	Off	On	On	Off
Platform / SRE	On	Off	Off	On
Executive	Off	Off	On	Off

Adjust based on your team’s actual responsibilities. The point is to avoid alert fatigue — not everyone needs every notification.

Notification timing

• Anomaly alerts — sent during the daily sync cycle, typically 6–8 AM UTC
• Budget alerts — sent as soon as the daily sync detects a threshold breach
• Weekly digest — sent every Monday at 9 AM UTC
• Sync failed — sent immediately when the sync encounters an error
• RI/SP expiration — sent 30 days before expiration, then again at 14 days and 7 days

Example notifications

Anomaly email

Subject: [Xplorr] Critical anomaly — EC2 in us-east-1

Your EC2 spend in us-east-1 spiked 340% yesterday.

  Baseline (7-day avg): $42/day
  Yesterday:            $185/day
  Severity:             Critical

Likely cause: 14 c5.2xlarge instances launched at 2:17 AM
that were not terminated after deployment.

→ View in console: https://console.xplorr.io/anomalies/abc123

Weekly digest email

Subject: [Xplorr] Weekly cost digest — Mar 10–16, 2026

Last week's spend: $4,820  (+8% vs prior week)
MTD spend:         $10,240
Projected EOM:     $15,600  (budget: $14,000 ⚠️)

Top movers:
  EC2:   $2,100  (+12%)
  RDS:   $890    (+3%)
  S3:    $420    (-5%)

Open recommendations: 7 (est. savings: $680/mo)

→ View dashboard: https://console.xplorr.io

Common mistakes

• Leaving sync-complete notifications on for all users. Unless you’re debugging a sync issue, these just create noise. Turn them off and rely on sync-failed notifications instead.
• Not configuring Slack for on-call teams. Email notifications can sit unread for hours. If your SRE team needs to respond to anomalies quickly, Slack is the right channel.
• Giving everyone the same notification settings. Finance doesn’t need anomaly alerts. Engineers don’t need weekly digests (usually). Tailor preferences to roles.

FAQ

Can I send notifications to multiple Slack channels? Currently one webhook per organization. If you need routing to multiple channels, use a Slack workflow or a tool like Zapier to route based on message content.

Can I get SMS or PagerDuty notifications? Not natively. Use the Slack integration with a PagerDuty-Slack bridge, or call the Xplorr API to build your own notification pipeline.

Why didn’t I get an anomaly alert? Check your notification preferences — anomaly emails might be toggled off. Also, low-severity anomalies are batched into the daily digest rather than sent individually.

Can I change the weekly digest day? Not currently. The digest is sent every Monday. If you need a different cadence, use scheduled reports (daily or weekly on any day).

Key takeaways

• Enable anomaly and budget alerts at minimum — these are the highest-signal notifications.
• Set up Slack for real-time team visibility; use email for individual tracking.
• Configure per-user preferences to avoid alert fatigue — not everyone needs every notification.
• Test your Slack webhook after setup to confirm messages are arriving in the right channel.