Cost Attribution

I. Formal Definition

The analytical claim that a measured cost was caused by a specified consumer, product, customer, or business outcome. Attribution is downstream of allocation: allocation says the cost was tagged to project X; attribution says project X exists to serve customer cohort Y, and therefore the cost was caused by Y. The federation requires that any published attribution claim disclose the allocation basis, the apportionment method, and the residual unattributed share. An attribution figure that hides its residual is not federation-grade and is not accepted as accreditation evidence.

II. Etymology

Borrowed from advertising and statistical inference; entered cloud finance through the customer-cohort analytical traditions of the early 2010s.

III. Federation Usage

Federation accreditation requires attribution at the customer-cohort or product-line level for at least one Tier-1 service. The attribution methodology must be reproducible and is subject to peer review under MEV-Annex:3.2.

IV. Related Terms

• cost-allocation
• unit-economics
• showback
• tagging-policy

V. Authoritative Citations

• UFMS-001:2.4UFMS Article II - Attribution Standard
• MEV-Annex:3.2MEV Annex III - Methodology Disclosure

VI. Citation in BibTeX

@misc{ifo4_glossary_cost_attribution,
  title        = {{Cost Attribution}},
  author       = {{IFO4 Federation Editorial Board}},
  howpublished = {{IFO4 Federation Glossary, slug \texttt{cost-attribution}}},
  year         = {2026},
  url          = {https://ifo4.org/glossary/cost-attribution},
  note         = {Category: FinOps; key: CostAttribution}
}

VII. Challenge This Definition

Federation members and accredited practitioners may challenge any entry under TGS-002:1.7. Filed challenges are routed to the editorial board, triaged into the revision register, and resolved in writing on the public docket. The slug remains stable through any revision.