Treating AI spend as a designed-in constraint, not a surprise on the invoice: cheapest-capable model tier first, caching on repeats, batch for the backlog, caps on volume — and every recurring job annotated with what it costs per month.
Why it matters: AI costs scale with usage, silently, and success makes it worse — the feature that takes off is the feature that blows the budget. The habit that saves you: know the cost before it recurs.
Related: Model tiers · Caching · Batch
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