# AI Cost Audit

[Original page](https://danilolapegna.com/en/services/ai-spend-audit)

Language: en.

Reconstruct where AI spend goes, what useful work it produces, and what is worth testing to reduce it without hurting service quality.

## A good fit when

Finance, product or engineering teams with one or two live AI applications, significant or unusual spend, and an economic decision to make.

## The problem

Bills are rising, but it is hard to see which applications, models and repeated attempts generate the spend, or what it costs to produce a usable result.

## What you are buying

A picture of spend checked against bills and usage data. Where the data allows, we also calculate cost per accepted result: work that meets the agreed quality criteria. You receive recommendations on what to test, what to leave alone and which data is missing.

## Price and timing

- €10,000 excl. VAT
- Fixed price
- 2 weeks
- Remote · up to 2 providers and 2 AI applications or processes

## Included

- Reconciled cost baseline with explained variances
- Allocation by provider, model, workload and team
- Cost per accepted outcome, or an explicit measurement gap
- Options ranked by expected savings, confidence, effort and risk

## Required inputs

- Billing and usage exports, preferably without live credentials
- A minimum map of accounts, workloads and owners
- Retry, failure and accepted-outcome logs where available
- Quality, security and continuity constraints that must not degrade

## Process

- Fix the scope, period and decision
- Reconcile cost, usage and allocation
- Measure waste and outcome cost without filling evidence gaps
- Compare options and choose one test with a stop rule

## Planned verification

- Reconciled total or an explained variance
- Repeatable formulas, period, currency and allocations
- Retries and rejected outputs excluded from accepted value
- Every option states estimated savings, confidence, effort and risk

## Who does the work

- Fifteen years building software people rely on.
- 15+: years in software engineering
- Seed → IPO: product leadership through a public listing
- 3.2★ → 4.7★: App Store rating during the team's work at bunq
- SDA Bocconi: two sessions on applied and agentic AI
- These results describe my experience. For your project, we define goals and measures around your company’s process.

## Scope limits

- Up to 2 providers, 2 workloads and 3 stakeholders
- Up to 90 days of already exportable data
- One primary accepted-outcome definition
- A third provider/workload, data remediation and implementation are quoted separately

## Exclusions

- No guarantee of savings, ROI or payback
- Not an accounting audit, certification or procurement engagement
- Implementation, vendor negotiation and continuous monitoring are out of scope
- Missing data remains unavailable: it is not estimated to fill the report

## Essential terms

- 50% at start · 50% at delivery · proposal valid for 14 days
- Cloud, tools, travel and data remediation excluded
- One clarification call within 14 days of delivery
- Fit assessment within 2 business days

## Acceptance criteria

- Costs reconciled or residual variance made explicit
- Repeatable allocation and formulas with visible missing data
- Options comparable by estimated savings, confidence, effort and risk
- One immediate decision with test, success, stop and rollback

## Related evidence and reading

- [Distill: experiments in using fewer AI tokens](https://danilolapegna.com/lab/distill-contesto-senza-perdere-fatti): An experiment showing why token savings need to be assessed alongside the quality of the resulting work. It does not yet demonstrate financial savings.
- [How to reduce AI costs without hurting service quality](https://danilolapegna.com/guides/how-to-reduce-ai-costs.html)

The verification steps are engagement criteria, not outcomes already achieved for every client.

## Next step

- [AI Cost Audit](https://danilolapegna.com/en/services/ai-spend-audit)
- [All services compared, with the request link](https://danilolapegna.com/en/agents)
- Email: hello@danilolapegna.com
- [Terms](https://danilolapegna.com/terms)

B2B service. An enquiry creates no commitment: price and scope become binding only in an accepted written proposal. This document does not confirm availability or appointments.