Simple cloud cost management: Grafana Labs integrates open standard FOCUS specification for cloud billing data

At Grafana Labs, we’ve always believed that observability should be open and accessible — that belief extends beyond metrics, logs, and traces to the costs associated with managing observability at scale. That’s why we’re excited to share that we’ve adopted the FinOps Open Cost and Usage Specification ( FOCUS), a community-driven, open standard for cloud billing data.

Supported by the FinOps Foundation which is a project of The Linux Foundation, FOCUS is designed to give organizations a consistent, vendor-neutral way to understand and analyze their cloud costs. As strong advocates for open standards, embracing this specification felt like a natural step for us. Starting in June, Grafana Cloud users can sign up for a private preview and begin downloading billing data in the FOCUS 1.2 format.

What is FOCUS and why now?

As customers scale their observability stacks, cost management becomes a critical part of the conversation. In our 3rd annual Observability Survey, cost controls are cited as a top concern as organizations scale and adopt new tools. 

Traditional billing reporting often falls short — siloed formats, inconsistent metadata, and a lack of context make it harder than it needs to be to track where spend is going and how to optimize it.

FOCUS aims to fix that by creating a common language for billing data across cloud and SaaS providers. Whether you’re a small team or a global enterprise, having access to standardized usage data means you can stop wrangling spreadsheets and start driving real, measurable savings.

Our users have recognized the benefits immediately. The FinOps team at Delivery Hero has played a key role in engaging with Grafana Labs’ teams to ensure early value delivery that meets the needs of modern FinOps teams.

“As FinOps is being applied to new scopes, especially to software as a service, a unifying billing format is becoming essential for streamlined cost management," says Lorant Kiss, Senior FinOps Manager of Delivery Hero. “Grafana Labs’ adoption of the open source FOCUS billing specification will enable incremental efficiency gains via more timely, detailed, and standardized cost information.”

Grafana Labs + FinOps Foundation: Shared values, shared mission

Grafana Labs’ commitment to open source and community-driven innovation has always been at the core of our mission. Whether through our open source projects like Loki, Mimir, Tempo, or our contributions to Prometheus and OpenTelemetry, such as our recent donation of the Grafana Beyla project, we’ve seen the power of open ecosystems to drive meaningful progress.

FOCUS represents a similar opportunity, but this time in the financial layer of cloud native infrastructure. By adopting this specification, we’re aligning with a broader movement to standardize and simplify cost data across providers, which ultimately benefits our users.

Transparency isn’t a nice-to-have. It’s fundamental to good FinOps practices. That’s why we’re building support for FOCUS into our cost reporting.

Empowering Grafana Cloud customers with transparency and actionable data

Over the past year, we’ve introduced features like Adaptive Telemetry, which help customers optimize observability costs by intelligently identifying and filtering out low-value telemetry data. It’s part of a broader commitment to help teams ensure they only pay for what’s truly valuable.

FOCUS adds a new layer to that story. With access to standardized usage and cost data, our users can:

• Integrate Grafana Cloud billing data into existing FinOps reporting
• Proactively identify optimization opportunities across their observability workloads

This transparency empowers teams to make better decisions about how and where they invest in observability — no more black boxes, and no more guesswork.

Looking ahead: A new Cost Management and Billing experience

Adopting FOCUS is just the beginning. Later this year, we’ll be launching a completely redesigned Cost Management and Billing (CMAB) experience in Grafana Cloud. This new experience will replace our existing billing dashboard and introduce:

• Cost attribution capabilities that enable you to perform showbacks and chargebacks on billing data
• Reimagined UI for sharing billing data, making it easier to understand your costs
• Spending alerts that enable you to proactively manage spend

Ready to explore FOCUS?

FOCUS billing data is now available in private preview in Grafana Cloud. If you’d like early access, please complete this FOCUS interest form or talk to your Grafana Labs account representative.

We’re proud to support this open standard, and we’re excited to keep pushing forward on our commitment to transparency, flexibility, and helping users optimize every dollar spent on observability.

Stay tuned — there’s a lot more to come.

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