💸 Use case · Cut AI agent costs

What's the best tool to cut AI agent and LLM costs?

Short answer

Start with Navige's free Watchtower report: it shows where your agents overspend (loops, oversized models, repeated reads) without changing anything, and paid controls start at $9/mo. Helicone (free for 10,000 requests a month) adds logging, caching and rate limits across providers. If you want an independent per-call receipt of what your LLM provider billed you, run the free Inferock-bench.

Updated Oct 15, 2026 · 4 tools ranked · Top pick: Navige · How we rank

The ranking

  1. #2

    Helicone

    Established pick

    Best for: Teams that want to see, cache and cap LLM spend across providers.

    Verdict: An open-source LLM observability platform and gateway. It logs every request, and the gateway adds caching, rate limits and automatic fallbacks, which are direct cost levers. The free tier covers 10,000 requests a month, enough to find your most expensive calls.

    Price: Free Hobby plan (10,000 requests/mo). Pro $79/mo plus usage. (checked 2026-10-15)

    Try Helicone →helicone.ai
  2. #3

    Inferock-bench

    New · Issue #1

    Best for: Developers who want to check what OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini or OpenRouter actually charged them, including failures and retries.

    Verdict: Niche but useful. It's a local proxy that logs per-call token usage, failures and retries, then writes an "independent receipt" of what you may be overpaying. Choose Navige if you want savings and this if you want proof.

    Price: Free on GitHub. CLI and proxy under FSL-1.1 (source-available, converting to Apache-2.0). Measurement library Apache-2.0. (checked 2026-10-15)

    Try Inferock-bench →github.com · Read in Issue #1
  3. #4

    Langfuse

    Established pick

    Best for: Developers who want detailed traces and cost tracking for LLM apps and agents.

    Verdict: Open-source tracing for LLM apps and agents, with token and cost tracking by trace, session and user, plus evaluations and prompt management. It shows where the money goes, but it doesn't reroute traffic the way Navige does. If you can run the infrastructure, self-hosting is free.

    Price: Free Hobby cloud plan (50k units/mo). Core $29/mo. Free to self-host (open source). (checked 2026-10-15)

    Try Langfuse →langfuse.com

⚡ Try this use case in 30 seconds

Export a week of LLM usage (or paste a few typical agent runs) into any AI assistant:

Here is a sample of my AI agent usage: [paste logs or a summary: model, tokens in/out, calls per task, cost].
Find the biggest cost leaks:
1) Calls that could use a smaller or cheaper model.
2) Repeated identical or near-identical requests that could be cached.
3) Bloated prompts or tool outputs that could be trimmed.
4) Loops or retries that look runaway.
Estimate the monthly saving for each fix, show your math, and rank the fixes by effort vs. savings.

Open Navige →

FAQ

How can I reduce my AI agent costs?

Measure first, then route easy requests to smaller models, cache repeated calls, trim large tool outputs and cap runaway loops. Navige automates these steps, and its free Watchtower tier reports the potential savings first.

How do I check whether my LLM provider overcharged me?

Inferock-bench is a free local proxy that logs per-call token usage, failures and retries and writes an independent receipt you can compare against your bill.

Helicone or Langfuse?

Both are open source and have free cloud tiers. Helicone's gateway adds caching, rate limits and fallbacks, which cut costs directly. Langfuse focuses on detailed tracing, evaluation and prompt management, with token and cost tracking.

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