Metric guide · AI costs
AI spend
Short answer
AI spend is everything a company pays for AI in a month: model API bills from providers such as OpenAI, Anthropic or Google, AI services on its cloud bill, and AI tools the team uses. Add them from your books, bank and cards, and keep product AI and team AI as separate lines.
The formula
AI spend = model API costs + AI tool subscriptions, for the month
Unit: US dollars. Better when it goes down.
How to calculate it
- List every AI vendor you pay: model providers, AI services on your cloud bill and AI tools on company cards.
- Take each one's cost for the month from your books once the month closes, or from your bank and cards before that.
- Where you connect a provider's cost report, use it for the split by model, project and key, and take each cost from one place only.
- Mark each line as product AI, which serves your customers, or team AI, which your staff use, then add them up.
Mistakes that distort it
Subscriptions to AI assistants and coding tools often sit on company cards under software. Leave them out and AI spend reads low.
Product AI grows with customers and belongs in cost of revenue. Team AI grows with headcount. One total hides which one moved.
An OpenAI invoice in your books and the same cost in OpenAI's usage report are one cost. Count it once.
Where Sondola reads it from
Sondola finds AI spend in your books, bank and cards, and adds models, projects and keys from OpenAI usage and costs, Google Cloud billing and AWS costs, all three in beta. Every reading shows its source and period. Each reading keeps where it came from, the period and the date it was recorded, and you can download all of it at any time.
See all 34 integrations →Questions
Is AI spend part of cost of revenue?
Product AI, the models that serve your customers, usually is, so it lowers gross margin. Team AI, such as assistants your staff use, is an operating expense. Keep the two apart so each lands in the right place.
Does Sondola need an AI provider key to see AI spend?
No. Sondola finds AI in your books, bank and cards. Connecting OpenAI usage and costs, Google Cloud billing or AWS costs, all three in beta, adds the split by model, project and key.
Related metrics
Written by the Sondola team. Benchmarks name their source, basis and date. Changes to how Sondola counts a number are on the corrections page.
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