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AI Spend Management

Manage AI spend in Retool

This lab helps you understand how to access and configure AI spend management controls. It is recommended to review the Retool CoE: AI Spend Management to help determine strategies to optimize spend.

Lab Requirements​

To access the features described in this lab, make sure you have completed the following:

  • Retool installation upgraded to Retool Q4 Stable for self-hosted installations
  • You have Retool Administration access
  • You have an Enterprise account
Note

If you are running on a Team/Business plan, you can monitor your spend via Settings > Monitoring> Plans & Billing > AI Credits. You will not be able to configure spend controls however.

Overview​

AI Spend Controls supports both Retool Managed AI Credits and BYOK Tokens. For Retool Managed AI Credits, each Retool plan provides pooled AI Credits per month that does not accrue.

Enterprise plans allow you to parcel credits across the builders. For example, for Enterprise plan users, you may have 10 builders and Retool AI Actions that consume credits. Monitoring the AI Actions in Settings > Monitoring > AI monitoring > Usage identifies 200 credits.

10 builders * 100 credits each + 200 credits = 1200 credits

The following steps will demonstrate how to setup notifications and limits for builders, groups, and models.

Steps​

The following steps will walk through the key components of spend management including notification and blocks.

Create Notification and Spend Policy​

The first step is to create a policy by going to Settings > AI Monitoring > Spend Controls. In this console, you can select Users, Groups, and Models to Notify at or Block at.

Spend Controls console
Spend Controls console
  • Select Notify at > Spend limit > Amount > 100.
Notify at spend limit
Notify at spend limit
  • Select Set spend limit.
  • Once the notification has been specified, select Block at > Spend limit > Amount > 100.
Block at spend limit
Block at spend limit
  • Select Set spend limit.

Spend Requests​

As your team works within the App Builder, credits or tokens will be consumed. Within the App Builder Settings, you can view the organization's consumption and also be informed of limits:

App Builder settings showing consumption and limits
App Builder settings showing consumption and limits

The builder can select Request credits to ask the Retool Admin for more monthly credits. Retool Admins will see the following requests within the Spend Controls console. Individual requests are displayed, allowing you to Deny or Approve.

Approving or denying a credit request
Approving or denying a credit request

Overrides​

There are instances where you want to provide credits at the group level so that anyone in that group is assigned a credit spend. Retool will use the higher credit level (user, group). Say, for example, you specify a group limit of 200. Users in this group will now have a 200 credit limit.

Group override set to 200 credits
Group override set to 200 credits

If you are unsure what a user has, you can view the user details and see a breakdown of the policies applied and which policy is In effect.

User detail showing policy breakdown
User detail showing policy breakdown

Summary​

Now with Spend Controls, integrated with AI Monitoring, you have a platform to control builders AI consumption across numerous Retool Features and mechanisms to help optimize spend. The following additional resources help share this feature with your organization: