How to Track AI Agent Costs
Tracking agent costs means per-agent attribution, per-merchant detail, and a review cadence — not one monthly number.
The layers
Per-agent: every decision logged with the agent that made it.
Per-merchant: who got paid, how much.
Per-category: compute vs data vs inference.
The tools
Provider dashboards show their slice; the audit log shows the whole — including blocked attempts.
A weekly review turns the log into decisions.
At a glance
| View | Answers |
|---|---|
| Per-agent | Who spends |
| Per-merchant | Who gets paid |
| Per-category | What it's spent on |
| Per-rule | What got blocked/flagged |
FAQ
What's the ground truth?
The audit log — it records every decision with the rule that fired.
How often should I review?
Weekly for spend; monthly for rules.
Related
Stop the next $12,400 night.
One API call (or MCP tool) in front of every agent transaction — APPROVED, BLOCKED, or FLAGGED, deterministic, ~5 ms, fully logged.
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