Agents cost more than chatbots because they loop: they read files, call tools, retry and re-read. Spend grows with every step, not every prompt.
Set a hard spending cap and usage alerts in your provider dashboard before anything else. Use a cheaper, smaller model for routine steps and keep the strongest model for planning and hard problems. Keep context lean by giving narrow tasks, naming the exact files or documents, and starting a fresh session instead of letting one thread grow endlessly. Limit retries and step counts. Then track cost per finished task rather than per month. If an agent costs more than the human time it saves, redesign the workflow. Check your tool's current pricing and limits pages for details.