Finance sees the bill. Engineering sees usage. Neither can tie costs to teams, and a dashboard with better naming doesn't change that.

Showback is a good start: better tags, monthly team costs, nobody objects. Six months on, the data was accurate, every team saw its share, and spend was still up 26%. Showback reveals costs; it can't change behaviour on its own, because it was never the team's money.

Chargeback gives the bill an owner. Costs hit team budgets, idle resources get shut down or resized, consumption falls, and so does experimentation. Then comes the dispute: who pays for the cluster everyone uses?

The honest answer is a rung on a ladder, not one of the two models in the title: unallocated, showback, showback plus targets, partial chargeback, full chargeback. Most orgs should start at rung three.

The infographic walks all eight frames. Check your tag coverage first - below 90%, improve tagging; at 90% or above, confirm teams control their spend and finance will act on internal transfers. In 15 minutes you can find your current rung and the next move.