Databricks

Connect your Databricks account to track DBU spend by workspace, SKU, and product — jobs, SQL warehouses, DLT, and model serving — in StackSpend.

Databricks

Billing system tables — service principal recommended

The Databricks provider connects StackSpend to your account’s billing system tables (system.billing.usage and system.billing.list_prices) through a SQL warehouse, using a read-only service principal. StackSpend backfills up to 90 days of cost on first sync, then updates daily as new usage lands.

What StackSpend tracks

DBU spend per workspace and SKU at USD list price
Jobs, all-purpose, and serverless compute
SQL warehouses and Lakeflow/DLT pipelines
Model serving, vector search, and other AI products
90 days of historical data, updated daily

Note.Billing system tables are account-wide: they cover usage from every workspace in your Databricks account, so you only connect one workspace. Costs are computed as DBU quantity × the USD list price from system.billing.list_prices; if you have a negotiated discount, set the optional Discount % on the connection — Databricks does not expose contract rates via API.

Prerequisites

Workspace admin access (to create the service principal) and the metastore admin role for the system-table grants — account admin alone is not enough (see the note in step 2)
Unity Catalog enabled — the system.billing tables are part of Unity Catalog system tables
A SQL warehouse StackSpend can use for the daily billing query (a 2X-Small serverless warehouse with auto-stop is ideal — the query runs in seconds)

Setup

Create a service principal and secret

In your Databricks workspace, go to Settings → Identity and access → Service principals → Add service principal. Name it (e.g. stackspend) and copy its Application ID — this is the Client ID in StackSpend.

Open the service principal, go to Secrets → Generate secret, and copy the Client Secret immediately — Databricks shows it only once.

Grant read access to the billing tables

In a SQL editor, as a metastore admin, run the grants below with your service principal’s Application ID. StackSpend’s connect dialog generates this script pre-filled for you.

GRANT USE CATALOG ON CATALOG system TO `<service-principal-application-id>`;
GRANT USE SCHEMA ON SCHEMA system.billing TO `<service-principal-application-id>`;
GRANT SELECT ON SCHEMA system.billing TO `<service-principal-application-id>`;

PERMISSION_DENIED: User does not have MANAGE on Catalog 'system'.This error means you are not a metastore admin — only that role can grant on the system catalog; being a workspace or account admin is not enough, and new or trial accounts often have no metastore admin assigned at all. To assign it, open the Databricks account console → Catalog → select the metastore attached to your workspace → Edit → set Metastore Admin to yourself or an admin group, then re-run the grants.

Then give the service principal access to the warehouse: SQL Warehouses → your warehouse → Permissions → add the service principal with “Can use”.

Find your Workspace URL and Warehouse ID

The Workspace URL is the address you use to open Databricks (e.g. https://dbc-a1b2c3d4-e5f6.cloud.databricks.com). The SQL Warehouse ID is under SQL Warehouses → your warehouse → Connection details — the ID at the end of the HTTP path.

Add to StackSpend

In StackSpend, go to Providers → Databricks. Enter the Workspace URL, SQL Warehouse ID, Client ID, and Client Secret. Click Test Connection, then Save.

Verify access

To confirm the billing tables are enabled and carry data, run this in a SQL editor:

SELECT COUNT(*) AS rows_last_7_days
FROM system.billing.usage
WHERE usage_date >= DATE_SUB(CURRENT_DATE(), 7);

No rows in system.billing.usage?.System tables record usage from the time they are enabled onward. On a new account (or trial) the table can be empty until compute has actually run — start a cluster or run a query, and usage appears within a few hours. If the query fails with TABLE_OR_VIEW_NOT_FOUND, your workspace is not Unity Catalog-enabled or the grants above have not been applied.

Data summary

Attribute	Value
Data latency	Daily
Historical data	90 days
Setup time	5 min

Frequently asked questions

What Databricks credentials does StackSpend need?

StackSpend needs a service principal (Client ID + OAuth secret) with SELECT on the system.billing schema and “Can use” on one SQL warehouse, plus your workspace URL and the warehouse ID. A personal access token also works, but a service principal keeps syncing when people leave.

Is the Databricks connection read-only?

Yes. The service principal only holds SELECT on the system.billing schema and use of a SQL warehouse — StackSpend runs one read-only aggregation query per sync and never writes to your account.

Does the sync itself cost me DBUs?

A tiny amount: the daily billing query runs on your SQL warehouse for a few seconds. A 2X-Small serverless warehouse with auto-stop keeps this negligible — typically fractions of a DBU per day.

Are the costs my actual bill?

Costs are DBU usage multiplied by the USD list price from system.billing.list_prices, which matches pay-as-you-go bills. Negotiated contract discounts are not exposed by any Databricks API, so you can set an optional Discount % on the connection and StackSpend applies it to every line.

Which workspaces are covered?

All of them. The system.billing tables are account-wide, so connecting any one Unity Catalog-enabled workspace covers usage from every workspace in the account, broken down by workspace ID.

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