Anomalies and Budget Alerts

Pump View provides two ways to stay ahead of unexpected spend: Budget Alerts for tracking against a known target, and Anomaly Alerts for catching spend changes you did not anticipate.

Budget Alerts

Budgets let you set a monthly spend cap for specific accounts or services and get notified when spend approaches or exceeds that cap.

Creating a budget

Navigate to View > Budgets in the left sidebar, then click New budget.

Field	Description
Name	A label for this budget (e.g., "Data platform monthly budget"). Optional. Defaults to the scope if left blank.
Scope	Which accounts and services this budget watches. Use the Account and Service dropdowns to narrow the scope, or leave both set to "All" for a company-wide budget.
Budget	The monthly dollar amount this budget tracks against. The dialog shows last month's spend for the selected scope as a reference point. Click "Set as budget" to use last month's spend as the starting value.
Thresholds & alerts	One or more percentage thresholds that trigger notifications. Each threshold has its own recipient list.
Approval policy	Optional. Require sign-off before changes or breach-driven raises take effect.

How thresholds work

Each budget supports multiple thresholds. A common setup:

Threshold	Purpose
75%	Early warning. Notify the engineering lead so the team can investigate before the budget is fully consumed.
100%	Budget reached. Notify finance and leadership.

Each threshold tier alerts only its own tagged recipients. If no recipients are tagged for a threshold, the alert goes to everyone in your company.

Alert channels

Budget alerts can be delivered via email and Slack. Recipients must have an active Pump account.

Anomaly Alerts

Anomaly Alerts notify you when Pump detects unusual spend patterns across your connected providers. Unlike budgets (which require you to define a target), anomaly detection works automatically based on your historical spend data.

When Pump identifies a significant deviation from expected spend, it sends an alert to your configured channels. The alert includes the affected service or account, the magnitude of the change, and a link to investigate in the Playground.

Configuring anomaly alerts

Anomaly alert settings are available under Organization settings > Notifications. You can configure which channels receive anomaly notifications (email, Slack, or both).

Investigating an anomaly

When you receive an anomaly alert:

1. Click the link in the notification to open the relevant time range in the Playground.

2. Use the Top Movers view to identify which services or accounts drove the change.

3. Add an Annotation to document what caused the anomaly for future reference.

Budget Alerts vs. Anomaly Alerts

	Budget Alerts	Anomaly Alerts
Trigger	You define a dollar threshold	Pump detects deviations from expected patterns
Best for	Known cost targets (e.g., "don't exceed $50K/month on compute")	Catching unexpected changes you would not have set a budget for
Setup required	Create a budget with scope and thresholds	Minimal. Configure notification channels.
Scope	Scoped to specific accounts and/or services	Across all connected providers

Both alert types can be delivered to email and Slack. Using both together gives you coverage for planned limits and unplanned surprises.