Tags for Cost Visibility and Management
A tag is a key-value pair applied to a resource to hold metadata about that resource. Each tag consists of a key and a value. Tags are a flexible tool for organizing and quickly finding resources. Each user can create and customize their own tags to improve navigation and make work more efficient. Moreover, using tags helps to:
Organize resources efficiently.
Quickly locate specific items.
Filter and group objects logically.
Develop and track meaningful metrics.
Gain better visibility and reporting.
Align cloud operations with business objectives.
Beyond basic organization, tags also provide the capability to develop and track metrics, helping teams understand how cloud usage and management practices directly impact the value of the organization’s products, services, or activities. By structuring resources with meaningful tags, organizations gain better visibility, more accurate reporting, and a stronger alignment between cloud operations and business objectives.
One of the first and most common tagging use cases for organizations is improving visibility and management of cloud costs and usage.
There are several reasons why cost-focused tagging is often the starting point:
Clear and well-understood requirements
Finance and operations teams typically need to track the total cost of workloads and infrastructure that span across multiple services, accounts, or teams. Consistent tagging makes this cost breakdown possible.Defined tag structures
Cost allocation mechanisms often already exist in finance systems (e.g., Cost Center, Business Unit, Team, or Function). Translating these into cloud resource tags ensures alignment with the organization’s financial reporting.Quick return on investment
When resources are tagged consistently, teams can immediately start tracking and reporting on optimization results, such as:resources that were rightsized,
workloads that were scheduled (on/off).
With tags, working with resources becomes more transparent, structured, and convenient.
Assigning Tags to a Resource
Navigate to Cloudlist
From the main navigation menu, go to Resources → Cloudlist.
Filter or Search for a Resource
Use filters (i.e., by Resource Type or by Virtual network).
Use search to locate resource by name or ID.
Open Resource Details
Click Details next to the resource.
A side panel with all resource information will open.
Scroll down to the tags section
Add or Edit Tags
In the Tags section of the panel, click Edit.
In the Add/edit tags modal:
Enter a Key (e.g.,
Project).Enter a Value (e.g.,
FinOpsDemo).(Optional) Add multiple tags by clicking Add one more tag.
(Optional)To delete a tag, the user can simply click the “X” icon next to the tag name.
Click Save.
Verify the Tag presence
The tag is now shown in the Details of the resource.
After a tag is created and assigned to at least one resource, it becomes available in the dropdown lists of the filtering panels across the platform. This allows users to filter resources, costs, or optimization results directly by that tag.
Important: After tag is created and assigned to the resource, refresh the page. This ensures that the updated tag is properly displayed across the platform.
Where Tags Are Displayed and Used
Cloudlist / Cloudmap / Cloudnet
Tags are visible and can be modified directly within the Details panel on the right when a resource is selected.
Cost Overview
You can create cost groupings by Tags, which allows you to analyze cloud spend based on the tags assigned to resources (e.g., Environment, Owner, or any other custom key-value pair).
Waste / Rightsizing / Cloudsitter / Spots
Tags can be used as filters, helping you narrow down results to specific sets of resources.
In these modules, tags are also shown in the general columns of the resource tables, so you can quickly understand which tags are applied while reviewing optimization or cost-saving recommendations.
Cost Allocation with Tags
In ProfiSeaLabs, tags play a critical role in cost visibility and allocation. By tagging resources consistently, organizations can analyze and report cloud spend across different teams, environments, or workloads.
The platform itself provides:
Resource-level tagging – tags are visible in Cloudlist, Cloudmap, Cloudnet (in both tables and Details panels).
Cost grouping – in Cost Overview, spend can be grouped and analyzed by tags.
Filtering by tags – in Waste, Rightsizing, Cloudsitter, and Spots, resources can be filtered by specific tags, and tags are displayed directly in the resource tables.
Benefits of cost allocation tags in ProfiSeaLabs
Accountability – costs can be traced back to the teams responsible for resource usage.
Financial transparency – leadership gets clear dashboards and cost analysis broken down by tags.
Smarter investments – ROI can be tracked per workload or environment, enabling better funding and optimization decisions.