About the data
What format does my file need to be in?
A CSV, CSV.gz, or Parquet file conforming to the FOCUS v1.4 specification. AWS CUR’s "FOCUS 1.0 export", Azure Cost Management’s FOCUS export, and GCP BigQuery’s FOCUS table all produce conformant data. We also accept the FinOps Foundation sample files directly.
Will you accept my raw AWS CUR (not the FOCUS export)?
Not today. We’re FOCUS-native by design — we accept files that follow the open FOCUS standard rather than each provider’s proprietary schema. Most providers now offer a FOCUS export option; enable it and re-export.
Can I upload data from multiple cloud providers in one workspace?
Yes. FOCUS is multi-cloud by design. Upload an AWS FOCUS file, then an Azure file, then a GCP file — they all land in the same dashboard, with the ProviderName column distinguishing them.
What if my file fails validation?
We show you exactly which rows or columns failed, and against which FOCUS rule. Fix the source and re-upload — validation failures don’t count against your monthly upload limit.
About privacy
Why don’t you ask for cloud credentials like other tools?
Two reasons. One — it matches a model many security-conscious teams prefer: you give us a file, not a key to your cloud. Two — it’s structurally cheaper for us to run, so we can offer it free without selling your data to subsidise the cost.
What in my uploaded file do you actually keep?
The FOCUS event rows, parsed into our database. We hold aggregates and derived stats for 90 days from your last activity. Raw uploaded files are deleted from a landing bucket after 7 days. Nothing else is stored.
Will you ever train an ML model on my data?
No. We may compute aggregate platform statistics for capacity planning, but never per-user content. We commit to this in the Privacy Policy.
About the product
What does the free tier cost me at higher volumes?
Stay within the limits (5 uploads/month, 1 GB total, 5M rows, 90-day retention, 3 seats) and it remains free indefinitely. Go beyond any of those and the in-app prompt explains Pro — no surprise charge or auto-upgrade.
Why "FOCUS-native" instead of supporting FOCUS as one format among many?
Because the proprietary-schema tools that came before FOCUS lock you into their view of cost data. When you outgrow billingAI, your FOCUS files work in any other FOCUS-aware tool. We deliberately don’t create switching cost.
Why no real budget alerts on the free tier?
Alerts require delivery infrastructure (Slack apps, PagerDuty, email reputation, retries) and support when those fail — hard to do without an SLA, which is incompatible with "free." Pro tier handles alerts.
About the company
What’s the catch?
Honestly, none for what we’re offering. We build billingAI free so practitioners can use a credible FOCUS-native tool without an enterprise procurement cycle. Some will outgrow free and need Pro or Enterprise; most won’t. That’s fine.
Why open-source the FOCUS validator?
Because the more the FOCUS ecosystem matures, the easier it is for everyone to adopt FOCUS — including us. We contribute upstream to the FinOps Foundation’s tooling.