---
title: Cumulative sum aggregation
description: A parent pipeline aggregation which calculates the cumulative sum of a specified metric in a parent histogram (or date_histogram) aggregation. The specified...
url: https://www.elastic.co/elastic/docs-builder/docs/3016/reference/aggregations/search-aggregations-pipeline-cumulative-sum-aggregation
products:
  - Elasticsearch
---

# Cumulative sum aggregation
A parent pipeline aggregation which calculates the cumulative sum of a specified metric in a parent histogram (or date_histogram) aggregation. The specified metric must be numeric and the enclosing histogram must have `min_doc_count` set to `0` (default for `histogram` aggregations).

## Syntax

A `cumulative_sum` aggregation looks like this in isolation:
```js
{
  "cumulative_sum": {
    "buckets_path": "the_sum"
  }
}
```



| Parameter Name | Description                                                                                                                                                                                                                          | Required | Default Value |
|----------------|--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|----------|---------------|
| `buckets_path` | The path to the buckets we wish to find the cumulative sum for (see [`buckets_path` Syntax](/elastic/docs-builder/docs/3016/reference/aggregations/pipeline#buckets-path-syntax) for more details)                                   | Required |               |
| `format`       | [DecimalFormat pattern](https://docs.oracle.com/en/java/javase/11/docs/api/java.base/java/text/DecimalFormat.html) for theoutput value. If specified, the formatted value is returned in the aggregation’s`value_as_string` property | Optional | `null`        |

The following snippet calculates the cumulative sum of the total monthly `sales`:
```json

{
  "size": 0,
  "aggs": {
    "sales_per_month": {
      "date_histogram": {
        "field": "date",
        "calendar_interval": "month"
      },
      "aggs": {
        "sales": {
          "sum": {
            "field": "price"
          }
        },
        "cumulative_sales": {
          "cumulative_sum": {
            "buckets_path": "sales" <1>
          }
        }
      }
    }
  }
}
```

And the following may be the response:
```json
{
   "took": 11,
   "timed_out": false,
   "_shards": ...,
   "hits": ...,
   "aggregations": {
      "sales_per_month": {
         "buckets": [
            {
               "key_as_string": "2015/01/01 00:00:00",
               "key": 1420070400000,
               "doc_count": 3,
               "sales": {
                  "value": 550.0
               },
               "cumulative_sales": {
                  "value": 550.0
               }
            },
            {
               "key_as_string": "2015/02/01 00:00:00",
               "key": 1422748800000,
               "doc_count": 2,
               "sales": {
                  "value": 60.0
               },
               "cumulative_sales": {
                  "value": 610.0
               }
            },
            {
               "key_as_string": "2015/03/01 00:00:00",
               "key": 1425168000000,
               "doc_count": 2,
               "sales": {
                  "value": 375.0
               },
               "cumulative_sales": {
                  "value": 985.0
               }
            }
         ]
      }
   }
}
```