A company blew $500M on Claude in one month due to no spending limit. Another saw a $7 budget become $18K after an API key leak. OpenAI’s internal agent test hit $1.3M in 30 days. Uber burned its annual Claude budget by April. As billing shifts from flat fees to per token usage, heavy agents can cost thousands more. Some employees even game internal leaderboards by wasting tokens. Token efficiency is now the new battleground.

When did your last AI bill surprise you, and what did it teach you about controlling costs?

#Claude #OpenAI