Costs & budgets
The Costs & budgets tile shows what AI costs in your environment and how that compares with your budgets. All amounts are measured costs: calculated for each AI request from the actual usage and the provider's rates, converted to euros. They are not invoice amounts; measurements may be missing or delayed.
Who sees what
| Role | Sees | Can change |
|---|---|---|
| Board administrator | The whole organisation, all schools and the costs per model | The organisation budget and the budgets of all schools |
| School administrator | Only their own school or schools | The budget of their own school |
Use the school selector at the top to view one school or all schools.
Settings
With the Costs & budgets settings button (gear icon) at the top, a board administrator adjusts the organisation's settings. Show costs per person is off by default. As long as it is off, no individuals are visible anywhere: no list of people, no exceptions per person, no alerts about people and no people in the weekly email. The What fits in the budget per person section on the models page is not visible either. The whole People section, with the default per role and the deviations, is then not visible either; the budgets of the organisation and the schools keep working, with € 1.50 per account as the budget per person. If you turn the setting on, people are shown only by their initials. The setting shows who last changed it and when.
Choosing a month
Choose the Month at the top. Measurements started in September 2026; earlier months contain no data.
Overview
- Organisation (or the selected school): the measured costs for the month, the budget and how much of it has been used.
- Above 80% a warning appears; above 100% it states that the budget has been reached or exceeded.
- Requests without calculated costs (for example a model without a known rate) are counted separately. Their costs are not included in the amount.
- Check against provider invoices: for the current month, this shows what the providers invoiced up to the last weekly check (Monday), next to what was measured over the same period. Any difference comes from costs that are not measured or from rounding on the invoices.
- Six-month trend: the measured costs per month, so you can see whether usage is rising or falling.
- Schools: for each school the budget, the measured costs, the usage as a percentage and the remaining amount.
- Usage that cannot be assigned to a school is shown under Unknown school. Together, the schools add up to the organisation's total.
- Costs per model: which AI models cause the costs, with the number of requests.
Budgets
A budget is a monthly alert budget. It continues until you change it; any remainder does not carry over to the next month. AI keeps working when a budget is exceeded. It is not extra prepaid credit.
Default € 1.50 per person. Every account has a budget of € 1.50 per month, unless a different default per role, a school default or an exception has been set. As long as you do not enter an amount yourself, a school's budget follows from its accounts (number of accounts × budget per person) and the organisation's budget from all accounts. If Show costs per person is on, you see below the amount where it comes from, for example '120 accounts × budget per person'. Accounts belong to a school through the email address of the staff member or pupil; anonymous pupil accounts through their class group.
Edit budget
- Click Edit budget next to the organisation or a school.
- Enter the Monthly budget in euros. Leave it empty: the budget follows from the accounts again. Zero is a budget of € 0.
- Under Applies from, choose the month from which the budget applies. It applies every month from that month onward until you change it again. Earlier months keep their own budget.
- Enter a Reason for change and click Save.
Every change is stored with its reason and time.
People
This section, with the default per role, the exceptions and the deviations, is only visible if Show costs per person is on (see Settings).
Under People you set budgets per person. People are shown by their initials only.
- Default per role: a monthly budget for all pupils and for all staff of the organisation. Board administrators set this. Without a default set, € 1.50 per person applies. Pupils can get their own default, for example because they use different models.
- Default per role for a school: a school can have its own default. School administrators set it for their own school; without its own default, the school follows the organisation.
- Exception: a separate budget for one person. Click Add exception, look up the person by email address and enter the budget. You can only find people within your own schools.
For each person, their own exception applies first, then the school's default, and otherwise the organisation's default. The list shows for each person the measured costs, the budget, where that budget comes from and how much of it has been used. If you leave an exception or school default empty, the default applies again.
Deviations from the default
Only visible if Show costs per person is on.
Under Deviations from the default you find all school defaults and exceptions that apply this month, with the default they deviate from, who set them, when and for what reason. History shows every change: the old and new amount, from which month, by whom and why. All changes are kept and cannot be deleted.
Budget alerts
Every morning, a check is made whether the organisation, a school or a person has reached 80% or 100% of the budget. Administrators then see an alert: at the top of the admin overview and as a counter on the Costs & budgets tile. Nothing is emailed to pupils or staff.
- Board administrators see alerts about the organisation, all schools and all people.
- School administrators see alerts about their own school and the people in it.
Alerts about people only appear if Show costs per person is on.
On this page, Budget alerts lists all alerts for the selected month, with the measured amount, the budget and the date of the alert. Mark as seen removes them from the admin overview for all administrators; they remain on this page.
Weekly email
The administrators set up for the environment receive an email every Monday with the measured costs of the current month:
- the total and the budget of the organisation;
- for each school, the budget and how much of it has been used;
- the people who are over their budget, with their initials (only if Show costs per person is on).
The email uses the same measured costs as this page. The provider invoices remain visible under Check against provider invoices.