org.cispec.unit-cost

recommended: any CI with ongoing operational cost that accrues over time

org.cispec.unit-cost records the ongoing operational cost rate of a Change Item — what it costs per unit of time or consumption. This is the rate that, multiplied by org.cispec.usage, yields actual spend in any billing period, and the figure that FinOps automation monitors against spend thresholds encoded in the organisation’s cost centre policy.

The unit-cost combined with usage is the anomaly signal for incidents involving AI overspend or supply chain compromise: a unit-cost of 0.003:USD:per-token multiplied by a usage of 10000000:tokens in a single billing period is a detectable deviation that correlates with the incident timeline.

Applies to any CI with recurring operational cost: cloud compute ($/hour), AI API calls ($/token), storage ($/GB-month), network bandwidth ($/GB), SaaS subscriptions ($/user/month), maintenance contracts ($/year), facility leases ($/sqft/month).

Value format

Rate, currency, and billing unit — colon-separated.

org.cispec.unit-cost=0.096:USD:per-hour
org.cispec.unit-cost=0.003:USD:per-token
org.cispec.unit-cost=0.023:USD:per-GB-month
org.cispec.unit-cost=15000:USD:per-year

Conformance

org.cispec.unit-cost is RECOMMENDED for any CI with ongoing operational cost. It is not REQUIRED for Declared conformance.

Attestation

unit-cost is independently attestable against vendor invoices, cloud provider billing APIs, or contract rate schedules.

Resolution and relation

unit-cost × usage = actual spend in a period. Both are needed for incident attribution and FinOps anomaly detection. billing-model records the commercial structure under which unit-cost applies.

Document identifier

OID: 1.3.6.1.4.1.42387.2.3.3
GUID: 13b2c028-55ec-59a4-b274-c01ddddc33cf