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The Pricing feature recalculates the gen_ai.usage.cost attribute on existing LLM traces using the per-model pricing stored in Manage Models. This is useful when:
  • Your SDK didn’t send cost data (or sent 0).
  • Model pricing has changed and you want historical traces to reflect the new prices.
  • You added a custom model after traces were already ingested.

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How it works

For each trace, OpenLIT:
  1. Reads gen_ai.system (provider) and gen_ai.request.model from the span attributes.
  2. Looks up the matching model in the openlit_provider_models ClickHouse table.
  3. Computes the cost: 
    cost = (input_tokens / 1,000,000) × input_price_per_m_token
     + (output_tokens / 1,000,000) × output_price_per_m_token
  4. Writes the result back to the trace: 
    ALTER TABLE otel_traces
UPDATE SpanAttributes = mapUpdate(SpanAttributes, map('gen_ai.usage.cost', '<cost>'))
WHERE SpanId = '<span_id>'
Traces with missing provider, model, or zero tokens are skipped — they are not counted as errors. If the model is not found in Manage Models, the trace is also skipped. Add the model first, then recalculate.

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Manual recalculation

Recalculate the cost for a single trace directly from the trace detail panel.
1

Open a trace

Navigate to Requests and click on any LLM trace to open the detail panel.
2

Click the recalculate icon

In the Cost metric card at the top of the panel, click the refresh icon (↻).
  • If the cost is missing or zero, a pinging dot draws attention to the icon.
  • If the cost already exists, clicking recalculates it using the latest pricing.
3

See the result

A toast notification shows the updated cost. The panel refreshes automatically to display the new value.
API: POST /api/pricing/{spanId} — returns { success, data: { spanId, cost } } or { success: false, err: "..." }.

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Auto recalculation (cron-based)

Automatically recompute pricing on a schedule for all newly ingested LLM traces.
1

Open the Pricing page

Navigate to Pricing in the sidebar under the Configuration section.
2

Enable Auto Pricing

Toggle the Enable Auto Pricing switch.
3

Set the cron schedule

Enter a standard cron expression. For example:
  • */15 * * * * — every 15 minutes
  • 0 * * * * — every hour
  • 0 0 * * * — once a day at midnight
4

Save

Click Save (or Update if editing). OpenLIT installs a cron job that runs the pricing recalculation on the schedule you defined.

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How auto pricing selects traces

On each cron tick:
StepWhat happens
1. Select LLM spansQueries otel_traces for spans whose gen_ai.operation.name matches supported LLM operations (e.g. chat).
2. Incremental windowOnly spans with Timestamp >= last successful cron run are processed. The first run processes all historical LLM spans.
3. Look up modelFor each span, reads gen_ai.system (provider) and gen_ai.request.model, then finds the matching row in openlit_provider_models.
4. Compute cost(input_tokens / 1M) × input_price + (output_tokens / 1M) × output_price.
5. Write backUpdates SpanAttributes['gen_ai.usage.cost'] on the trace via ALTER TABLE otel_traces UPDATE.
6. Log runRecords totalSpans, totalUpdated, totalFailed, totalSkipped in the cron log with a status of SUCCESS, PARTIAL_SUCCESS, or FAILURE.
Spans with missing provider/model/tokens or an unknown model are skipped (not counted as errors). Add the model to Manage Models and the next cron run will pick it up.

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Cron restoration on restart

When the OpenLIT server restarts (e.g. after a container redeployment), all active auto-pricing cron jobs are automatically restored from the database. No manual re-setup is needed.

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API reference

EndpointMethodDescription
/api/pricing/configGETGet the current pricing config (auto flag, cron schedule)
/api/pricing/configPOSTCreate or update pricing config
/api/pricing/{spanId}POSTManually recalculate cost for a single trace
/api/pricing/autoPOSTTrigger auto pricing run (called by cron; allowlisted in middleware)
/api/openground/models/exportGETExport all model pricing as downloadable JSON (authenticated)
/api/pricing/export/{dbConfigId}GETPublic pricing URL for SDK pricing_json (no auth)
/api/openground/models/importPOSTBulk-import models from JSON, skipping duplicates

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Configuration

The pricing config is stored in the SQLite PricingConfigs table (managed by Prisma):
FieldTypeDescription
idStringConfig ID (auto-generated)
databaseConfigIdStringLinks to the ClickHouse database config
autoBooleanWhether auto pricing is enabled
recurringTimeStringCron schedule (e.g. */15 * * * *)
metaString (JSON)Internal metadata including cronJobId