> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://clawhqplatform.com/docs/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Budget & Cost Controls

> Set spending limits and monitor AI costs in ClawHQ.

ClawHQ gives you visibility into AI spending and tools to keep costs under control — so you can run agents confidently without surprise bills.

## How costs are tracked

Every model call is logged with:

* Model used
* Input and output token counts
* Estimated cost (based on published pricing)
* Agent and pipeline that triggered it

View this data in **Dashboard → Metrics** or via the [`/api/metrics`](/reference/api) endpoint.

## Setting a monthly budget

Set a monthly spending threshold in **Settings → General → Budget**, or in `~/.openclaw/openclaw.json`:

```json theme={null}
{
  "modelRouter": {
    "budgetThreshold": 80
  }
}
```

`budgetThreshold` is a percentage (0–100). When monthly spend reaches this percentage of your limit, the model router automatically downgrades non-critical tasks to Claude Haiku 4.5 as a fallback.

## Budget fallback behavior

When the budget threshold is hit:

* `code` and `research` tasks continue using their configured model (they're considered critical)
* `summary` and `chat` tasks are routed to `claude-haiku-4-5` automatically
* A warning banner appears in the dashboard

You can override this by locking task types:

```json theme={null}
{
  "modelRouter": {
    "lockedTaskTypes": ["code", "research", "creative"]
  }
}
```

Locked task types are never downgraded, even over budget.

## Cost-saving tips

* Use **Haiku** for high-volume, simple tasks (summaries, routing, triage)
* Use **Sonnet** for most reasoning tasks — best price/performance ratio
* Reserve **Opus** for genuinely complex tasks (architecture, deep analysis)
* Enable **self-learning** — the model router learns which models succeed on your tasks and routes accordingly over time
* Enable **Ollama** for local routing of simple tasks at zero API cost

See [Model Router](/guides/model-router) for full routing configuration.