Cost accounting

Usage Dashboard separates payment, spend, observed workload, and reconstructed list price so the same economic event is not counted twice.

Cost basis

The backend economics result defines its comparison denominator as:

• the selected range's allocated subscription commitment;
• zero for a configured free connection; or
• one PAYG source selected by the precedence in Understanding cost & value.

Rolling provider cost, native billing buckets, Hermes cost, and token pricing can overlap. They are evidence about the same spend/workload, not separate line items to sum.

Efficiency formulas

value multiplier = API-equivalent value / cost basis
tokens per dollar = attributed tokens / cost basis
requests per dollar = attributed requests / cost basis
effective cost per 1M = cost basis / attributed tokens × 1,000,000

These require compatible currencies, positive cost where division is needed, attributed workload, at least 80% pricing coverage, and medium/high attribution confidence. Otherwise the provider is excluded with a reason.

The current Usage table independently presents subscription efficiency using the full configured commitment rather than the backend's allocated cost_basis. PAYG rows use the selected PAYG cost basis. This difference is important when interpreting a range shorter than the billing cadence.

Multiple configurations of one provider make provider-level Hermes workload ambiguous. The workload is reported once at provider level and is not copied into every configuration's economics.