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Fee/Price Margin on LLM Costs

Apply percentage-based or fixed-amount margins to specific providers or globally. This is useful for enterprises that need to add operational overhead costs to bill internal consumers.

When to Use This Feature​

If your Generative AI platform involves various operational and architectural overheads, along with infrastructure costs, you may need the capability to apply an additional fee or margin to the total LLM costs.

Common use cases:

  • Internal chargebacks - Add operational overhead costs when billing internal teams
  • Cost recovery - Recover infrastructure, support, and platform maintenance costs

Setup Margins via UI​

This walkthrough shows how to add a provider margin and view the cost breakdown in the LiteLLM UI.

Step 1: Navigate to Settings​

From the LiteLLM dashboard, click on Settings in the left sidebar.

Click Settings

Step 2: Open Cost Tracking​

Click on Cost Tracking to access the cost configuration options.

Click Cost Tracking

Step 3: Select Fee/Price Margin​

Click on Fee/Price Margin - this section allows you to add fees or margins to LLM costs for internal billing and cost recovery.

Click Fee/Price Margin

Step 4: Add Provider Margin​

Click + Add Provider Margin to create a new margin configuration.

Click Add Provider Margin

Step 5: Select Provider​

Click the search field to select which provider to apply the margin to.

Click search field

You can select Global (All Providers) to apply the margin to all providers, or choose a specific provider like Bedrock, OpenAI, or Anthropic.

Select Global

In this example, we'll select Bedrock as the provider.

Select Bedrock

Step 6: Choose Margin Type​

Select the margin type. You can choose between Percentage-based (e.g., 10% markup) or Fixed Amount (e.g., $0.001 per request).

Click Percentage-based

For this example, we'll select Fixed Amount to add a flat fee per request.

Click Fixed Amount

Step 7: Enter Margin Value​

Enter the margin value. In this example, we're adding a $25 fixed fee per request.

Enter margin value

Step 8: Save the Margin​

Click Add Provider Margin to save your configuration.

Click Add Provider Margin

Step 9: Test the Margin in Playground​

Navigate to Playground to test your margin configuration by making a request.

Click Playground

Select a model and send a test message.

Send test message

Enter your prompt in the message field and submit.

Enter prompt

You'll receive a response from the model.

View response

Step 10: View Cost Breakdown in Logs​

Navigate to Logs to view the detailed cost breakdown for your request.

Click Logs

Click on the expand icon to view the request details.

Click expand icon

Step 11: View Cost Breakdown Details​

Click on Cost Breakdown to see how the total cost was calculated, including the margin.

Click Cost Breakdown

The cost breakdown shows the margin amount that was added. In this example, you can see the +$25.00 margin clearly displayed.

View margin amount

The total cost reflects the base LLM cost plus the margin, giving you full transparency into your cost structure.

View total cost

Setup Margins via Config​

You can also configure margins directly in your config.yaml file.

Step 1: Add margin config to config.yaml

# Apply margins to providers
cost_margin_config:
  global: 0.05            # 5% global margin on all providers
  openai: 0.10            # 10% margin for OpenAI (overrides global)
  anthropic:
    fixed_amount: 0.001   # $0.001 fixed fee per request

Step 2: Start proxy

litellm /path/to/config.yaml

The margin will be automatically applied to all cost calculations for the configured providers.

How Margins Work​

  • Margins are applied after discounts (if configured)
  • Margins are calculated independently from discounts
  • You can use:
    • Percentage-based: {"openai": 0.10} = 10% margin
    • Fixed amount: {"openai": {"fixed_amount": 0.001}} = $0.001 per request
    • Global: {"global": 0.05} = 5% margin on all providers (unless provider-specific margin exists)
  • Provider-specific margins override global margins
  • Margin information is tracked in cost breakdown logs
  • Margin information is returned in response headers:
    • x-litellm-response-cost-margin-amount - Total margin added in USD
    • x-litellm-response-cost-margin-percent - Margin percentage applied

Margin Calculation Examples​

Example 1: Percentage-only margin

cost_margin_config:
  openai: 0.10  # 10% margin

If base cost is $1.00, final cost = $1.00 x 1.10 = $1.10

Example 2: Fixed amount only

cost_margin_config:
  anthropic:
    fixed_amount: 0.001  # $0.001 per request

If base cost is $1.00, final cost = $1.00 + $0.001 = $1.001

Example 3: Global margin with provider override

cost_margin_config:
  global: 0.05   # 5% global margin
  openai: 0.10   # 10% margin for OpenAI (overrides global)
  • OpenAI requests: 10% margin applied
  • All other providers: 5% margin applied

Margins with Discounts​

Margins and discounts are calculated independently:

  1. Base cost is calculated
  2. Discount is applied (if configured)
  3. Margin is applied to the discounted cost

Example:

cost_discount_config:
  openai: 0.05  # 5% discount
cost_margin_config:
  openai: 0.10  # 10% margin

If base cost is $1.00:

  • After discount: $1.00 x 0.95 = $0.95
  • After margin: $0.95 x 1.10 = $1.045

Supported Providers​

You can apply margins to all LiteLLM supported providers, or use global to apply to all providers. Common examples:

  • global - Applies to all providers (unless provider-specific margin exists)
  • openai - OpenAI
  • anthropic - Anthropic
  • vertex_ai - Google Vertex AI
  • gemini - Google Gemini
  • azure - Azure OpenAI
  • bedrock - AWS Bedrock

See the full list of providers in the LlmProviders enum.