A stale price can reverse a routing decision
Cost-aware routing compares qualified candidates. If one model's input, output, cached-input, or batch rate is wrong, the router may choose a more expensive path while claiming savings.
Model aliases can also move to new versions with different behavior. Price verification and quality revalidation should be related events, not separate maintenance queues.
Store source and effective time
Each catalog row should include provider, exact model identifier, billing units, input and output price, cache price, region or plan qualifiers, official source URL, verification timestamp, and effective date when known.
Keep historical versions so an old request can be priced with the catalog that applied at the time.
Turn drift into an impact report
When a price changes, calculate projected effect from recent input-output ratios, cache usage, and route volume. A 20% price move on a rarely used model may matter less than a 3% move on the default path.
Separate list-price impact from policy impact. If the change alters the cheapest qualified model, shadow the new decision before enforcing it.
- Fetch or review official provider pricing
- Diff normalized catalog rows
- Flag missing and ambiguous rates
- Project impact from actual token mix
- Re-evaluate changed route boundaries
- Approve and version the catalog update
Do not scrape and trust
Automated collection can detect candidates, but pricing pages include footnotes, regions, batches, and cache conditions. Require human or rule-based verification for ambiguous changes and retain the cited source.
Frequently asked questions
How often should model prices be checked?
Use a schedule aligned with spend and change risk, plus alerts for provider announcements. High-volume catalogs justify at least frequent automated diffs with verification.
Should old requests be repriced after a catalog update?
No for the accounting ledger. Preserve the price basis used at request time. You may separately model what the old traffic would cost under the new catalog.
Are provider pricing pages enough for invoices?
They define rates, but invoice reconciliation still matters because commitments, credits, cache accounting, and off-gateway usage can change totals.
Sources and further reading
FrugalAI uses primary documentation and published research where possible. Product capabilities and prices can change; verify vendor details before procurement or production changes.