Cost Analysis

Cost Analysis provides deep visibility into your AI spending across providers, models, flows, and time periods.

Dashboard Overview

The Cost Analysis dashboard shows:

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  COST OVERVIEW                                    Last 30 Days ▼   │
├────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│                                                                     │
│  ┌─────────────────────────┐  ┌─────────────────────────┐          │
│  │     TOTAL SPEND         │  │   TOTAL REQUESTS        │          │
│  │       $2,450            │  │      156,234            │          │
│  │   ▲ 12% from last month │  │   ▲ 8% from last month  │          │
│  └─────────────────────────┘  └─────────────────────────┘          │
│                                                                     │
│  ┌─────────────────────────┐  ┌─────────────────────────┐          │
│  │    AVG COST/REQUEST     │  │   TOP OPTIMIZATION      │          │
│  │       $0.0157           │  │   Switch classifier     │          │
│  │   ▼ 3% from last month  │  │   Save $340/mo          │          │
│  └─────────────────────────┘  └─────────────────────────┘          │
│                                                                     │
└────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Cost Breakdown Views

By Provider

┌────────────────────────────────────────┐
│         COST BY PROVIDER               │
├────────────────────────────────────────┤
│                                        │
│  OpenAI      ████████████████░░ 68%   │
│              $1,666                    │
│                                        │
│  Anthropic   ██████░░░░░░░░░░░░ 24%   │
│              $588                      │
│                                        │
│  Google      ██░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░  8%   │
│              $196                      │
│                                        │
└────────────────────────────────────────┘

By Model

Model	Requests	Tokens	Cost	% Total
gpt-4o	45,230	12.3M	$1,245	51%
gpt-4o-mini	89,450	8.7M	$89	4%
claude-3-sonnet	21,554	5.2M	$520	21%
gpt-3.5-turbo	34,120	3.1M	$52	2%

By Flow

Flow	Requests	Avg Cost	Total Cost
customer-support	52,340	$0.024	$1,256
content-generator	38,210	$0.019	$726
qa-pipeline	65,684	$0.007	$460

Time-Series Analysis

Daily Trends

Cost Trend (Last 30 Days)
$120 ┤
     │            ╭───╮
$100 ┤     ╭─────╯   ╰──────╮
     │ ╭──╯                  ╰────╮
 $80 ┤─╯                          ╰─────
     │
 $60 ┤
     └────────────────────────────────────
      Nov 1    Nov 8    Nov 15   Nov 22

Weekly Comparison

Week	Cost	Change	Requests
This week	$612	+5%	39,210
Last week	$583	-2%	37,845
2 weeks ago	$595	+8%	36,120

Anomaly Detection

Ladger automatically detects cost anomalies:

Alert Configuration

Set up cost alerts in Project Settings → Alerts:

Alert Type	Threshold	Action
Daily spend	> $100	Email
Weekly spend	> $500	Slack
Cost spike	> 50% increase	PagerDuty
Per-request cost	> $0.10	Email

Token Analysis

Input vs Output

Token Distribution
┌─────────────────────────────────────┐
│                                     │
│  Input Tokens   ████████████ 72%   │
│                 8.9M tokens        │
│                                     │
│  Output Tokens  █████░░░░░░░ 28%   │
│                 3.4M tokens        │
│                                     │
└─────────────────────────────────────┘

Token Efficiency

Flow	Avg Input	Avg Output	Ratio	Status
qa-pipeline	1,200	150	8:1	✓ Efficient
content-gen	500	2,000	1:4	✓ Expected
support-agent	2,500	300	8:1	⚠ Review

Cost Attribution

By User/Customer

Track costs per user for billing or analysis:

span.setAttributes({
  'user.id': 'customer-123',
  'user.tier': 'enterprise',
});

Dashboard shows:

Customer	Requests	Cost	Avg Cost
customer-123	12,340	$245	$0.020
customer-456	8,920	$178	$0.020
customer-789	5,670	$113	$0.020

By Feature

Tag spans with feature names:

span.setAttributes({
  'feature': 'smart-search',
  'feature.version': '2.0',
});

Cost Projections

Ladger projects future costs based on trends:

Timeframe	Projected	Confidence
Next 7 days	$580	High (±5%)
Next 30 days	$2,650	Medium (±15%)
Next 90 days	$8,200	Low (±25%)

Filtering and Drill-Down

Filter cost data by:

Time range: Last hour, 24h, 7d, 30d, custom
Provider: OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, etc.
Model: GPT-4o, Claude-3, etc.
Flow: Any configured flow name
Environment: Production, staging, development
Custom attributes: Any span attribute

Exporting Reports

Generate cost reports:

Go to Cost Analysis → Reports
Select date range and filters
Choose format: PDF, CSV, or JSON
Schedule recurring reports (Pro/Enterprise)

Report Contents

Executive summary
Cost breakdown by dimension
Trend analysis
Anomaly highlights
Optimization recommendations

API Access

Query cost data programmatically:

curl -X GET "https://ladger.pages.dev/api/v1/metrics/costs" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer ladger_sk_live_..." \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "flowName": "customer-support",
    "startDate": "2024-01-01",
    "endDate": "2024-01-31",
    "groupBy": "model"
  }'

Next Steps

Explore Task Classification to understand cost drivers
Learn about Optimization recommendations
Set up Simulations to test changes safely