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Cost Tracking

Know what you're spending. No surprises.

OpenRouter charges per token. Claudish can help you track costs across sessions.

Note: Cost tracking is experimental. Estimates are approximations based on model pricing data.

Enable Cost Tracking

claudish --cost-tracker "do some work"

This:

Enables monitor mode automatically
Tracks token usage for each request
Calculates cost based on model pricing
Saves data for later analysis

View Cost Report

After some sessions:

claudish --audit-costs

Output:

Cost Tracking Report
====================

Total sessions: 12
Total tokens: 245,891
  - Input tokens: 198,234
  - Output tokens: 47,657

Estimated cost: $2.34

By model:
  x-ai/grok-code-fast-1     $1.12 (48%)
  google/gemini-3-pro-preview $0.89 (38%)
  minimax/minimax-m2        $0.33 (14%)

Reset Tracking

Start fresh:

claudish --reset-costs

This clears all accumulated cost data.

How It Works

Claudish tracks:

Input tokens - What you send (prompts, context, files)
Output tokens - What the model generates
Model used - For accurate per-model pricing

Costs are calculated using OpenRouter's published pricing.

Accuracy Notes

Why "estimated"?

Pricing changes - OpenRouter adjusts prices periodically
Token counting - Different tokenizers give slightly different counts
Caching - Some requests may be cached (cheaper or free)
Special pricing - Free tiers, promotions, etc.

For accurate billing, check your OpenRouter dashboard.

Cost Optimization Tips

Use the right model for the task:

Task	Recommended	Cost
Quick fixes	MiniMax M2	$0.60/1M
General coding	Grok Code Fast	$0.85/1M
Complex work	Gemini 3 Pro	$7.00/1M

Avoid unnecessary context: Don't dump entire codebases when you only need one file.

Use single-shot for simple tasks: Interactive sessions accumulate context. Single-shot starts fresh each time.

Set up model mapping: Route cheap tasks to cheap models automatically. See Model Mapping.

Real Cost Examples

50K token session (typical):

MiniMax M2: ~$0.03
Grok Code Fast: ~$0.04
Gemini 3 Pro: ~$0.35

Heavy 500K token session:

MiniMax M2: ~$0.30
Grok Code Fast: ~$0.43
Gemini 3 Pro: ~$3.50

Monthly estimate (heavy user, 10 sessions/day):

Budget setup: ~$10-15/month
Premium setup: ~$50-100/month

Compare with Native Claude

For context, native Claude Code costs (via Anthropic):

Claude 3.5 Sonnet: ~$18/1M input, ~$90/1M output
Claude 3 Opus: ~$75/1M input, ~$375/1M output

OpenRouter models are often 10-100x cheaper for comparable tasks.

OpenRouter Free Tier

OpenRouter offers $5 free credits for new accounts.

That's enough for:

~8M tokens with MiniMax M2
~6M tokens with Grok Code Fast
~700K tokens with Gemini 3 Pro

Plenty to evaluate if Claudish works for you.

Choosing Models - Cost vs capability trade-offs
Environment Variables - Configure model defaults

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