# Counting one initiative's Azure costs

> Tag the Azure resources an initiative runs on and enter the tag for the initiative, so it counts its own costs, not the whole subscription's.
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> Source: https://roiva.ai/docs/azure-costs-per-initiative
> Checked against the product on October 15, 2026

An Azure connection reads the whole subscription's bill. Linked to an initiative without a tag, it counts every service you map, whoever's work it runs. If one subscription runs several things, a resource tag narrows what it counts to the resources that are the initiative's own: its Azure OpenAI resource, the AI Search service beside it, its storage account.

It takes two steps, one in Azure and one in Roiva. Start soon: a cost counts toward the tag only from the day its resource carries the tag.

#### 1. In Azure: tag the initiative's resources

Pick one key for every initiative, such as `Initiative`, and one value per initiative, such as `InvoiceAI`. Put that pair on each resource the initiative runs on, under Tags on the resource in the Azure portal, or in the Bicep or Terraform that deploys it. Azure Policy can add a tag to every resource that's missing it.

- **Tags count from the day they go on.** Usage from before a resource was tagged carries no tag, and Cost Management can take up to a day to show a new one.
- **Tag the resources, not only their resource group.** A resource doesn't pass on its resource group's or subscription's tags to its costs. Cost Management's tag inheritance setting does copy them onto usage, back to the start of the current month, where your billing account offers it.
- **Give each initiative its own Azure OpenAI resource.** Azure tags a resource, not the deployments inside it, so two initiatives sharing one resource can't be told apart.
- **Not every cost carries a tag.** Purchases such as reservations, and resources that don't report usage, stay in the rest of the bill.

#### 2. In Roiva: enter the tag for the initiative

On the Azure connection, open the **Initiatives** tab and choose **Link to an Initiative**, or **Edit** on an initiative it's already linked to. Under the resource tag section, choose the **Tag key** and **Tag value**. Roiva lists the keys on the subscription's usage, and each value with its cost over the last 30 days, so you pick the spelling Azure uses rather than typing one. Save, and the connection syncs within a few minutes.

Linked as a cost source, the connection books the tagged spend as the initiative's cost, by month and service, and skips its service mappings: the tag decides what counts. Link it to an initiative that reduces cloud spend, rather than spending it, as an activity source instead, so the spend it measures isn't also booked as its cost. [Linking connections to initiatives](https://roiva.ai/docs/linking-connections-to-initiatives) explains the roles.

#### Check it worked

The initiative's row on the **Initiatives** tab shows the tag it books by and what it booked over the last 90 days. A tag that matches nothing books $0 without failing the sync, so if the row stays at $0 after a sync, compare the tag with the resources' own, in Cost analysis in the Azure portal grouped by that tag.