Budgeting for Token Consumption: Forecasting AI OPEX

Cloud bills used to be about storage. Now they are about thoughts.

The Variable Cost Shock

SaaS is fixed ($20/user). AI is variable ($0.01/thought).
If your agent gets into a loop, you can burn $100 in an hour.
If your user pastes a 500-page PDF, you just spent $5.

The Forecasting Formula

Cost = (Input_Tokens + Output_Tokens) * Frequency * Model_Price

Input Tokens: The context window. (Grows over time in a chat).
Output Tokens: The answer. (Usually small).
Frequency: How many times the agent runs per day.

The Multiplier Effect of Agents

An Agent isnt one call. Its a loop.

User: Research X (1 call)
Agent: Thinking... (1 call)
Agent: Searching... (1 call)
Agent: Reading... (1 call)
Agent: Answering. (1 call)

One user request = 5+ API calls.
If you budget for 1 call, you are under-budgeting by 500%.

FinOps Strategies 💰

1. Model Routing (Arbitrage)

Use GPT-4 for the hard logic. Use GPT-4o-mini (or Haiku) for the summarizing/formatting.

Savings: 90%.

2. Caching

If User A asks What is the policy? and User B asks What is the policy?, the second call should be free (cached).
Anthropics Prompt Caching is essential for large documents.

3. Hard Limits

Set daily spend limits on API keys.

Dev: $50/day.
Prod: $500/day.
If the limit is hit, the bot should say I am sleeping, not crash silently.

Conclusion

Treat AI spend like utility spend (Electricity/Water). Monitor it daily. Optimize the leaky faucets (inefficient prompts).

This concludes the Managing the Synthetic Team series.

How This Article Was Made

This article is a live example of the AI-enabled content workflow we build for clients.

Stage	Who	What
Research	Claude Opus 4.5	Analyzed current industry data, studies, and expert sources
Curation	Tom Hundley	Directed focus, validated relevance, ensured strategic alignment
Drafting	Claude Opus 4.5	Synthesized research into structured narrative
Fact-Check	Human + AI	All statistics linked to original sources below
Editorial	Tom Hundley	Final review for accuracy, tone, and value

The result: Research-backed content in a fraction of the time, with full transparency and human accountability.

Why We Work This Way

Were an AI enablement company. It would be strange if we didnt use AI to create content. But more importantly, we believe the future of professional content isnt AI vs. Human—its AI amplifying human expertise.

Every article we publish demonstrates the same workflow we help clients implement: AI handles the heavy lifting of research and drafting, humans provide direction, judgment, and accountability.

Want to build this capability for your team? Lets talk about AI enablement →