I hit the same pattern with agent loops, the compile step would retry with full context each time, and by attempt #5 each call cost more than the first two combined. Having a per-call budget cap that kicks in BEFORE the retry would've saved me a lot. Curious how LangGraph handles cost-aware retry policies?
Comment 2, On an article about "hidden costs of AI agents"
The one that surprised me most was context accumulation. Turn 1 of a session costs pennies, but by turn 40 you're re-sending the entire conversation history and each call costs 50x more. Fixed-rate billing makes this invisible, you only notice when the monthly bill arrives. I started tracking per-session cost daily and it was eye-opening.
The thing I didn't realize until running agents in production: API rate limits don't protect your budget. They protect the provider's infrastructure. By the time the rate limiter triggers, 18 of 21 calls have already gone through. You need per-transaction evaluation, not reactive rate limiting. Took me a $2,800 lesson to learn that.
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