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n. / Cost and performance
Cost per run
Definition
Cost per run is the total money spent on one agent run, found by adding up the cost of every model call and paid tool call inside it. It is the number that tells you whether a feature is affordable at scale.
In more detail
Averages mislead because cost is uneven: most runs are cheap and a few looping runs are expensive. Look at the median, the 95th percentile and the most expensive runs, and break cost down by model and step. Pair it with a quality score, since the cheapest run is not the best one.
Example
A run makes four model calls for $0.012 total and one search call for $0.004. Cost per run is $0.016, or $160 for 10,000 runs.
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