Budget alerts
You'll configure account-level budgets that email stakeholders when spend crosses list-price thresholds.
Prereqs: Account Console foundations
What you'll walk away with
Monthly USD budgets driven by list prices, platform add-ons included. When spend crosses a threshold, the budget emails the recipients you name. It never throttles a workload.
Prerequisites
- Account admin role.
- Optional: live custom tags if you want to filter budgets per team (Tags and attribution).
Only account admins create budgets. A budget only watches. Usage keeps accruing after you cross a threshold.
Budgets are in Public Preview, so the limits may change before GA.
Open the account console
Sign in as an account admin:
- AWS: accounts.cloud.databricks.com
- Azure: accounts.azuredatabricks.net
- GCP: accounts.gcp.databricks.com
Steps
Follow the official guide end to end: Create and monitor budgets.
It covers Usage → Budgets → Add budget, plus definitions, thresholds, and email recipients.
Example: Development Workspace budget
Use this pattern when you want to watch a development slice of the account with two early-warning thresholds:
- Budget name:
Development Workspace budget - Definitions: restrict to your non-production workspace, with optional tag filters if you set them up on Tags and attribution.
- Alert thresholds: add $500 and $1000 as two separate monthly lines, each with the right distribution list.

Expect some lag. Alerts can trail actual usage by up to 24 hours, and a brand-new budget may show $0 for a while as telemetry catches up.
Verify
- Usage → Budgets lists the new budget.
- Open it. Cumulative spend plots against the dotted threshold lines.
- To force a dry-run email, set a threshold below month-to-date spend and wait. Check spam.

Where people trip
Budget stuck at zero
Wait up to a day for telemetry, and confirm the account actually generated usage this month.
No email
Check the addresses and the spam folders, and confirm spend crossed the threshold once you account for the latency.
Totals mismatch invoices
Budgets ignore credits and discounts on purpose. Model your contract in SQL or an external tool if you need invoice-accurate thresholds.
Cannot create budgets
Only account admins manage budgets.
Tag filters empty
Confirm the resources emitted that tag before the budget month (Tags and attribution).
Next
- Do next: Data governance strategy
- Learn why: Account Console foundations
- Reference: Create and monitor budgets