# Control cost and usage

Go beyond the single cumulative budget from [Add guardrails and a budget](/products/affinidi-trust-fabric/agent-stream/get-started/add-guardrails-and-budget.md): cap spend per pipeline stage, get notified before a breach becomes a bill shock, and avoid provider cost altogether on repeated prompts. Field-level reference for every block here is in [Cost and usage limits →](/products/affinidi-trust-fabric/agent-stream/reference/surfaces/cost-and-usage-limits.md).

| Guide | What you will achieve |
| [Cap spend per pipeline stage](/products/affinidi-trust-fabric/agent-stream/how-to-guides/cost-and-usage/cap-spend-per-pipeline-stage.md) | Set a separate monthly budget or token cap on the LLM call, Judge, and Jury stages, so one stage’s spend cannot exhaust a shared cumulative limit. |
| [Alert on budget breaches and cost spikes](/products/affinidi-trust-fabric/agent-stream/how-to-guides/cost-and-usage/alert-on-budget-breaches-and-cost-spikes.md) | Route a cost, token, error-rate, or cost-spike alert to Slack, email, or a webhook, so a person is notified without the request being blocked. |
| [Cache repeated responses to cut cost and latency](/products/affinidi-trust-fabric/agent-stream/how-to-guides/cost-and-usage/cache-repeated-responses.md) | Serve an identical or near-duplicate request from an in-memory cache instead of calling the provider again. |

## Pages in this section
- [Cap spend per pipeline stage](/products/affinidi-trust-fabric/agent-stream/how-to-guides/cost-and-usage/cap-spend-per-pipeline-stage.md): Set a separate monthly budget or token cap on the LLM call, Judge, and Jury stages, so one stage's spend cannot exhaust a shared cumulative limit.
- [Alert on budget breaches and cost spikes](/products/affinidi-trust-fabric/agent-stream/how-to-guides/cost-and-usage/alert-on-budget-breaches-and-cost-spikes.md): Route a cost, token, error-rate, or cost-spike alert to Slack, email, or a webhook, so a person is notified without the request being blocked.
- [Cache repeated responses to cut cost and latency](/products/affinidi-trust-fabric/agent-stream/how-to-guides/cost-and-usage/cache-repeated-responses.md): Serve an identical or near-duplicate request from an in-memory response cache instead of calling the provider again.