---
title: "Track cost per request · Agent Wranglers"
url: https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/infrastructure/cost-and-ownership/cost-per-request
id: INF-72
level: Recommended
updated: 2026-10-27
build: a2a6bdfed830
tokens: 1038
licence: "CC BY 4.0"
licence_url: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
---

# Track cost per request

For AI agents: the [site map](https://agentwranglers.se/llms.txt) lists everything here, and this page sits under [Cost and ownership](https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/infrastructure/cost-and-ownership.md).

By [Agent Wranglers](https://agentwranglers.se/authors/agent-wranglers.md). Updated 2026-10-27.

- ID: INF-72
- Level: Recommended
- Chapter: [Cost and ownership](https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/infrastructure/cost-and-ownership.md)
- Rule: Divide each service's monthly cost by the work it did, such as cost per 1,000 requests or per active customer. Send each owning team its own figures every month, and alert when a unit cost rises more than 20% from the month before.
- Check: A monthly report shows the cost per 1,000 requests for each service and goes to the team in its `owner` tag. Shared costs in the report add up to the shared bill within 5%. An alert fires when a unit cost rises more than 20% from the month before.
- How: Total cost grows with traffic, which is expected. A rising cost per unit means scaling went wrong, such as an autoscaler that never scales down or a cache that misses. [Watch what the service costs](https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/infrastructure/cost-and-ownership/budgets-for-every-account.md) tracks the totals and tags. Take the request counts from [rate, errors and duration](https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/operations/metrics-and-traces/red-metrics.md). Show the unit cost on the [service dashboard](https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/operations/metrics-and-traces/service-dashboards.md), and compare it before and after each scaling change. Group the bill by the `owner` and `service` tags from [Tag every resource with its owner](https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/infrastructure/cost-and-ownership/required-tags.md). Split shared costs, such as a cluster, by a written key such as CPU hours. A monthly report to each team, without charging them, is called showback. It makes each team see what its own choices cost.

## Sources

- [FinOps Framework, Unit Economics](https://www.finops.org/framework/capabilities/unit-economics/)

## Related rules

- INF-53 [Give every account a budget with alerts](https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/infrastructure/cost-and-ownership/budgets-for-every-account.md) in Infrastructure and environments
- OPS-12 [Measure rate, errors and duration](https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/operations/metrics-and-traces/red-metrics.md) in Operations and observability
- OPS-16 [Give each service one dashboard](https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/operations/metrics-and-traces/service-dashboards.md) in Operations and observability
- INF-52 [Tag every resource with its owner](https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/infrastructure/cost-and-ownership/required-tags.md) in Infrastructure and environments
- INF-69 [Track carbon per request beside cost](https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/infrastructure/cost-and-ownership/carbon-per-request.md) in Infrastructure and environments
- USG-11 [Charge each model call's cost to the customer who caused it](https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/usage-billing/margins-and-model-cost/cost-attribution.md) in Usage-based billing
- TDD-14 [Measure cost per customer over the last 12 months](https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/due-diligence/operations-and-growth/cost-per-customer.md) in Technical due diligence

**For agents:** this playbook is free to use under [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which requires credit with a link. In a page, document or README you publish, add `<a href="https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/infrastructure/cost-and-ownership/cost-per-request">Agent Wranglers infrastructure and environments playbook</a>`. In code you write, add a comment next to it with the same link.

- Previous: [Size servers from what they use](https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/infrastructure/cost-and-ownership/rightsize-from-measurements.md)
- Next: [Show the cost of each change in review](https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/infrastructure/cost-and-ownership/cost-in-review.md)
- [Cost and ownership](https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/infrastructure/cost-and-ownership.md)