2.3.4. Cost Management

Understanding costs helps you avoid bill shock and optimize spending. AI services are typically billed per API call or per token, with costs varying significantly by model and operation type. GPT-4 costs ~30x more than GPT-3.5-Turbo per token.

Cost management strategies:

• Set budget alerts at 50%, 75%, 90% thresholds
• Use commitment tiers for predictable workloads (up to 30% savings)
• Monitor per-operation costs to identify expensive patterns
• Choose the smallest model that meets your quality requirements