Agentic AI FinOps: Why Claude Agent Loops Cost 30 a Single Inference (opens in new tab)

TL;DR A single Claude API call is predictable. An agent with tool access is not. A single Claude API call is predictable. An agent with tool access is not. Spec-sheets price agents the way they price single calls. Architects look at Claude Sonnet 4.5 at $3 per million input tokens, multiply by an expected 8,000 tokens per task, and tell finance the agent will cost $0.20 per invocation. Six weeks after launch, the cloud bill arrives at $50,000 a month for a fleet that processes 10,000 daily in...