Cost Analytics
See the read and write capacity every operation actually consumed, track a running session total per table, and set an alert before an exploratory session gets expensive.
Where cost appears
DynamoOps asks DynamoDB to return consumed capacity on every Scan, Query, PartiQL statement, item write, delete, import batch and bulk delete. The numbers you see are the ones DynamoDB reports, not estimates computed from item sizes. They surface in three places.
- Result bar — after each read: “⚡ 12.5 RCU · 💰 $0.001625”. After a PartiQL write, the toast reports the WCU consumed.
- Session micro-bar — a one-line summary under the grid: total RCU, total WCU, estimated session cost and the number of operations.
- Cost Analytics panel — the full breakdown, opened with 💰 Cost in the toolbar.
The Cost Analytics panel
| Section | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Session Overview | Total RCU, total WCU, session cost, read operations, write operations and elapsed session time. |
| Cost by Table | One row per table sorted by cost, with a relative bar, RCU/WCU totals and operation count. |
| Cost Alert | A dollar threshold with Set and Clear, and the alert status. |
| Recent Operations | The last 50 operations: type, table, capacity units, cost, item count, latency and time. |
Operation badges distinguish scan, query, partiql, put, delete and batchWrite. The header offers ↺ Reset to zero the session and restart its timer, and ✕ to close.
How cost is estimated
Capacity units are exact, as returned by DynamoDB. The dollar figure multiplies them by the on-demand request-unit prices for us-east-1 (standard table class), shown in the panel footer:
Pricing: $0.125 per 1M RCU · $0.625 per 1M WCU (us-east-1, on-demand)- Amounts below one cent are shown with six decimals; smaller ones in scientific notation.
- Operations against an emulator that returns no consumed capacity are recorded with 0 units.
- Not tracked: truncate, table and index management, dashboard metrics, stream polling and the “Export entire table” fetch.
Session scope and reset
A session is one launch of the app. Totals are global across tabs and connections, and “Cost by Table” is keyed by table name, so identically named tables in two accounts share a row. The in-memory history keeps the last 200 operations. ↺ Reset clears everything after a confirmation; quitting the app also clears it. The alert threshold survives both.
Cost alert
Enter a threshold in dollars and click Set. When the session cost reaches it, a warning toast fires once: “Cost alert: session cost reached $X (threshold: $Y)”. The alert re-arms when you reset the session or set a threshold again. Clear removes it. The threshold is saved locally and restored on the next launch.
A practical pattern: set a $0.05 alert before exploring an unfamiliar production table with Scans. If it fires, switch to Query by key or narrow the page size.