CloudZero
Cost intelligence that connects every cloud and AI dollar to an owner.
About
CloudZero is a cloud cost intelligence platform founded in 2016 in Boston, led by founder and CTO Erik Peterson. Instead of stopping at aggregate billing dashboards, its allocation engine assigns 100% of spend to an owner without relying on virtual tags, even for untagged shared services, and extends the model to AI spend: it traces costs down to the customer, feature, model, and prompt, including OpenAI and Anthropic usage. The vendor says it manages more than $14B in spend and lists Coinbase, Klaviyo, Miro, Nubank, and Rapid7 as customers.
In 2026 CloudZero leaned hard into AI workflows: a Claude Code plugin that puts cost intelligence inside engineering workflows, a free open-source agent for routing AI tasks to the cheapest capable model, and Kubernetes optimization capabilities for rightsizing and unit economics. Pricing is a single all-inclusive subscription quoted per environment. Recommendations are advisory only (no automated fixes, per third-party reviews), and the $14B and customer figures are vendor-reported.
What it can do
- CostFormation allocation of 100% of spend without virtual tags
- AI cost attribution to customer, feature, model, and prompt
- Unit cost metrics (cost per customer, per feature)
- Kubernetes rightsizing and efficiency scores
- Streaming telemetry for near-real-time anomaly detection
- Budgets, forecasts, and optimization recommendations
- Claude Code plugin and open-source model-routing agent
- MCP integration
Setup
- Request a demo or self-guided tour at cloudzero.com.
- Connect your cloud accounts (AWS, Azure, GCP), Kubernetes clusters, Snowflake, Datadog, and AI providers.
- Let the allocation engine map spend to customers, features, and teams without retagging.
- Set budgets and anomaly alerts; use the Claude Code plugin or AI Hub for investigations.
Prerequisites
Cloud accounts and billing access (AWS, Azure, and/or GCP); a Claude Code subscription if you want the IDE plugin.
Use cases
Works with
Trust score — 8/10
Scored 8/10 (TIER verified, metrics-v1). Evidence: founded 2016 (Boston), 10-year operator; vendor-reported $14B+ spend managed with name-brand customers (Coinbase, Klaviyo, Miro, Nubank, Rapid7); 2026 comparison reviews rank it top for unit economics and AI cost attribution (4.6/5 Gartner Peer Insights). Strengths: deep unit-economics model, AI-spend attribution down to the prompt, active 2026 product shipping. Docked for: (1) spend and customer figures are vendor-reported; (2) recommendations only, no automated remediation, and pricing is quote-based. License: proprietary.
How the trust score is built
Full methodology →- Adoption · stars/downloads, log-scaled vs peers
- 8.0/10
- Maintenance · recency, releases, issue load
- 8.0/10
- Openness · license + docs
- 7.0/10
- Manual review · sanity read + red-flag check
- 7.0/10
- · Founded 2016, Boston; founder/CTO Erik Peterson
- · Vendor-reported $14B+ spend managed; customers Coinbase, Klaviyo, Miro, Nubank, Rapid7
- · 2026 comparison reviews rank it top for unit economics and AI cost attribution (4.6/5 Gartner Peer Insights)
- · Claude Code plugin + open-source model-routing agent shipped 2026
- · Spend/customer figures vendor-reported; recommendations advisory only; quote-based pricing
Sources
Every fact above was checked against these sources. Where a claim comes from the provider and couldn't be independently verified, the text says so.