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title: Managing Costs and Token Usage
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# Managing Costs and Token Usage

> For the full documentation index, see: https://docs.mulesoft.com/llms.txt

Use cost and token metrics to understand usage, control spend, and identify optimization
opportunities.

Available metrics depend on your tenant configuration and role.

> [!NOTE] Automate cost and token usage reporting using the MuleSoft MCP Platform Server. For
> details, see
> [fetch\_cost\_overview](https://docs.mulesoft.com/mulesoft-mcp-server/reference-mcp-tools-platform#fetch-cost-overview)
> and related Cost Management tools in the MuleSoft MCP Platform Server Tool Reference.

Watch this video to see how to track cost and token usage:

![](https://play.vidyard.com/gmgGwda3MpnowKnYUaCQom.jpg)

## Before You Begin

Before getting started, make sure you have:

- An Anypoint Platform account.

- These permissions:

  - API Manager: Manage Policies

  - API Manager: View APIs Configuration

  - API Manager: View Policies

  - Anypoint Code Builder: Mule Developer Generative AI User (Optional)

  - Anypoint Monitoring: Monitoring Viewer

  - Exchange: Exchange Viewer

  For more information, see [Enhanced Experience Permissions](https://docs.mulesoft.com/general/exp-home-start#permissions).

## Cost and Token Data Locations

The system displays token usage and performance data in several places:

- **Governance** > **Cost Management**: Primary dashboard for organization-wide token usage and
  spend indicators

- Service detail pages: Usage and performance summaries for supported services

- **Observability**: Aggregated token and latency trends, when configured

Navigation labels can vary by catalog, enabled features, and release.

## Open Cost Management

1.  Log in and go to **Governance** > **Cost Management**.

2.  Select a tab:

    - The **Budgets** tab (default): View total managed spend and budget breakdowns.

    - The **Optimizations** tab: Analyze MCP server token usage and optimization opportunities.

3.  Set the time range for the data you want to analyze. The time range selector (**1H**, **24H**,
    **7D**, or **30D**; default **30D**) sits next to the tabs and applies to both the **Budgets**
    and **Optimizations** tabs.

4.  Use the **Tokens**/**Cost** toggle to choose how metrics display. See
    [View Metrics in Tokens or Cost](#view-metrics-in-tokens-or-cost).

## View Metrics in Tokens or Cost

The **Tokens**/**Cost** toggle next to the tabs controls whether **Cost Management** metrics display
as token counts or as dollar amounts. The toggle defaults to **Tokens**.

To view spend in dollars, set the toggle to **Cost**.

Before dollar amounts appear, you must configure a cost rate for each model. Until you set model
rates, the **Cost** view shows a prompt to configure your models, and metrics that depend on cost
show zero. To set rates, select **Configure Costs**, or set a cost per token for each model on the
**Models** page. See [Setting Model Costs for Spend Tracking](https://docs.mulesoft.com/general/exp-models-manage-costs).

### When Cost Tracking Begins

Cost metrics accrue only from the time you configure model rates. LLM usage before that time isn’t
priced and doesn’t appear as cost, even for earlier periods within the selected time range.

Token counts are unaffected. The **Tokens** view continues to reflect the complete spend from the
time you enabled **Cost Management**, regardless of when you set model rates.

## Cost Data Use Cases

Cost and performance data inform multiple workflows:

- Cost optimization: Identify services with high usage and apply optimization controls.

- Performance triage: Correlate latency or error spikes with deployments or policy changes.

- Planning and alignment: Share trends with finance and platform teams for forecasting.

To automatically cap usage, configure budgets in the **Budgets** tab or through model wallets.
Budgets block requests once the limit is reached. To limit consumption in other ways, apply
governance strategies or rate-limiting policies.

## Cost Data and Governance

Use **Cost Management** data to create or refine governance strategies.

For runtime enforcement, attach cost-related controls or policies to a governance strategy and apply
it to the relevant services.

## Budgets Tab

The **Budgets** tab shows financial summaries across your configured budgets:

- **Total Managed Spend**: Total spend across all configured budgets.

- **By Provider**: Spend breakdown by LLM provider.

- **By Model Wallet**: Spend breakdown by model wallet.

These summaries display as token counts or dollar amounts based on the **Tokens**/**Cost** toggle.
Dollar amounts appear only after you configure model rates. See
[View Metrics in Tokens or Cost](#view-metrics-in-tokens-or-cost).

Each budget row displays a status badge that reflects current usage against the budget limit:

- **At Risk**: Usage has reached 75% or more of the budget limit.

- **At Limit**: Usage has reached the budget limit. The system blocks further requests.

Use the search on the **Budgets** table to find specific budgets.

### Add a Budget

1.  In the **Budgets** tab, select **New Budget**.

2.  In the **New Budget** dialog, configure the budget:

    - **Model Wallet** (required): Select the model wallet to scope the budget.

    - **Provider** (required): Select an LLM provider.

    - **Model** (required): Select a model. This field appears after you select a provider.

    - **Period**: Select **Daily**, **Weekly**, or **Monthly**.

    - **Metric**: Select **Spend** to set a dollar limit, or **Tokens** to set a token count limit.

    - **Spend Limit (USD)** or **Token Limit** (required): Enter the maximum allowed value.

3.  Select **Create Budget**.

When usage reaches the budget limit, the system blocks requests. Each model wallet, provider, and
model combination supports only one budget.

For information about model wallets and how they combine authentication credentials with budget
limits, see [Capping Spend for Callers of Model Proxies](https://docs.mulesoft.com/general/exp-model-wallets-manage).

## Optimizations Tab

The **Optimizations** tab shows cost and token savings data across model proxies, agents, and MCP
servers.

The summary cards show:

- **Total Managed Spend**: The total cost of all LLM traffic routed through managed proxies. This
  excludes any usage that bypasses the proxy network.

- **Agents Potential Savings**: Estimated cost savings available by applying optimization policies
  to agents. It shows **Amount Saved** as the amount already saved.

- **LLM Proxies Potential Savings**: Estimated cost savings available by applying optimization
  policies to LLM proxies. It shows **Amount Saved** as the amount already saved.

- **MCP Servers Potential Savings**: Estimated token savings available by applying optimization
  policies to MCP servers. It shows **Tokens Saved** as tokens already saved.

Treat these metrics as directional, not exact.

The **Top optimization opportunities** section highlights the instances with the highest potential
savings and the specific optimization policy to apply.

### Filter and Search

Use the controls at the top of the **Optimizations** tab to narrow the view:

- Select a sub-tab to filter by instance type:

  - **Model Proxies**: Monitor cost data and savings for traffic explicitly routed through your
    managed proxy network.

  - **Agents**: Track proxy-attributed spend and policy savings for active agents governed by Omni
    Gateway.

  - **MCP Servers**: Observe token volumes processed through tool responses during active server
    calls.

- Search for instance names.

- Use **Filters** to refine the view by **Environment** or **Provider**.

The counter updates to show the number of matching instances.

## Apply Optimization Policies

Optimization policies reduce token consumption and cost for a given instance without changing what
the instance does. The available policies depend on the instance type.

To apply an optimization policy:

1.  In the **Optimizations** tab, select the sub-tab for the instance type: **Model Proxies**,
    **Agents**, or **MCP Servers**.

2.  Locate the instance you want to optimize, and select **View optimizations**.

3.  In the instance’s optimizations view, locate the policy you want to apply.

4.  Review the policy’s **Potential savings**, and expand **Why this policy?** for details.

5.  Select **Apply** to enable the policy.

Treat the savings estimates as directional, and note that some policies may affect instance latency.

### MCP Optimizations

For MCP servers, you can apply these optimization policies. Each policy shows its **Potential
savings** and a **Why this policy?** explanation, and you apply it by selecting **Apply**.

- **MCP Tool Mapping**: Redefines tool names and descriptions to reduce prompt complexity and
  improve LLM comprehension.

- **MCP Tools Progressive Disclosure**: Wraps the MCP server and surfaces two tools, `search_tools`
  and `invoke_tool`, to increase both accuracy and cost optimization.

- **Clean Payloads**: Strips structural noise from tool responses, such as whitespace, nulls, and
  base64 blobs.

- **Smart Response Trimming**: Trims oversized responses to match agent intent, dropping fields the
  agent never reads.

- **Compress Repeated Structures**: Compresses repeated tabular structures into Token-Oriented
  Object Notation (TOON).

### Agent Optimizations

For agents, you can apply these optimization policies to the agent’s Model Proxy to reduce token
costs. Each policy shows its **Potential savings** and a **Why this policy?** explanation, and you
apply it by selecting **Apply**.

- **Clean Responses**: Strips redundant fields and boilerplate from tool responses before they reach
  the model.

- **Compress Repeated Structures**: Re-encodes repeated array or object structures in tool responses
  into a more compact form.

### Model Proxy Optimizations

For model proxies, you can apply these optimization policies to reduce token costs. Each policy
shows its **Potential savings**, and you apply it by selecting **Apply**. Applying policies may
affect instance latency.

- **Semantic Caching**: Caches LLM responses by semantic similarity so repeat or near-repeat prompts
  short-circuit an upstream call. This typically results in about 40% fewer tokens on chat-style
  traffic.

## See Also

- [Capping Spend for Callers of Model Proxies](https://docs.mulesoft.com/general/exp-model-wallets-manage)

- [Working with Governance Strategies](https://docs.mulesoft.com/general/exp-governance-work-with-strategies)

- [Create Governance Strategies](https://docs.mulesoft.com/general/exp-governance-create-strategy)

- [Managing Governance Strategies](https://docs.mulesoft.com/general/exp-governance-manage-strategies)

- [Viewing Service Details in the Portfolio](https://docs.mulesoft.com/general/exp-services-view-details)

- [Monitoring Services in Your Portfolio](https://docs.mulesoft.com/general/exp-services-monitoring)

- [View Detailed Metrics for Your Services](https://docs.mulesoft.com/general/exp-services-view-detailed-metrics)
