openrouter-cost-controls

Openrouter Cost Controls

Overview

This skill demonstrates setting up spending limits, per-request budgets, and automated cost monitoring to prevent unexpected charges.

Prerequisites

• OpenRouter account with credit management access
• Understanding of model pricing tiers

Instructions

1. Set account-level limits: Configure spending limits in the OpenRouter dashboard under Settings > Limits to cap total monthly spend
2. Use per-request max_tokens: Always set max_tokens in every request to cap completion length and prevent runaway costs
3. Track costs per request: Read the usage field in each response and multiply by model pricing to track cumulative spend in your application
4. Implement budget middleware: Create a middleware that checks cumulative spend before each request and rejects requests that would exceed the budget
5. Set up alerts: Query /api/v1/auth/key periodically to check remaining credits and alert when balance drops below a threshold

Output

• Per-request cost tracking integrated into your application
• Budget enforcement middleware that blocks requests over the limit
• Automated alerts when spending approaches configured thresholds

Error Handling

Error	Cause	Fix
402 Payment Required	Account credits exhausted	Top up credits or switch to free models
Budget exceeded locally	Middleware blocked the request	Increase budget limit or optimize prompts to reduce token usage
Inaccurate cost tracking	Using stale pricing data	Refresh model pricing from /models endpoint daily

See ${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/references/errors.md for full error reference.

Examples

See ${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/references/examples.md for runnable code samples.

Resources

• OpenRouter Documentation
• OpenRouter Models
• OpenRouter API Reference
• OpenRouter Status