I Tracked My AI API Costs for 30 Days. The Results Changed How I Build.

I've been shipping AI features for the past year. Last month I hit a wall — my API bill crossed $300 and I had no idea where it was going. So I did what any developer would: I built a cost tracker. Here's what 30 days of data taught me. The Setup I built a lightweight middleware that logged every API call: model used, token count, cost, and task type. # Cost-tracking middleware for OpenAI-compatible APIs class CostTracker: def __init__(self): self.records = [] de...