Connect OpenAI
Paste an Admin key of your OpenAI organization, and Costfluent imports its daily API cost by project and line item.
Costfluent reads your OpenAI API spend from the organization Costs API, with an Admin key you create for it. One connection is one OpenAI organization, and the cost of every project in it.
How Costfluent connects
Costfluent stores the Admin key encrypted and uses it for one call: the organization's daily costs. OpenAI offers an Admin key no call that names its organization, so Costfluent identifies the connection by the organization OpenAI's answer names, or, when it names none, by a fingerprint of the key itself. The key is only ever used for that connection.
Choose Read only when you create the key, where the OpenAI platform offers it. A key with full permissions can also manage the organization's members, projects and keys.
Prerequisites
- The Owner or Integration owner organization role in Costfluent.
- An Admin key, which an Organization Owner creates on the OpenAI platform under the
organization's Admin keys. It starts with
sk-admin-. A project key (sk-proj-) cannot read cost.
Connect
- Open Settings, then Integrations, select OpenAI, and open the Connect tab.
- Select "Add Admin key" and paste the key into Admin key.
- Select "Test connection" to see each check, or "Connect" to save.
Costfluent reads one day of costs before storing anything, so a connection that saves can read your cost. A connection with the same identity as an existing one is refused.
Connect each organization once, with one key. When OpenAI does not name the organization, two keys of one organization are two identities, and its spend would be counted twice.
Data and freshness
Connecting imports as far back as your plan's cost history allows, and at most six months (Manage connections), as long as OpenAI reports cost that far back. Cost arrives by UTC day, in US dollars, as OpenAI reports it.
Reporting dimensions
- Account is the project. Spend outside any project appears under the connection's identity.
- Service is
OpenAI. - SKU is OpenAI's line item, such as
gpt-4.1-mini-2025-04-14, input, kept whole: OpenAI does not document its format, so Costfluent does not split it into model and operation. - The billing account is the connection's identity, and the billing period is the calendar month.
Update or disconnect
After connecting
The Manage tab lists the connection by its Organization ID: the organization OpenAI named,
or key: and the key's fingerprint. Open the gear icon beside it to see whether the costs are still
readable, which workspaces the connection feeds, and which months have been imported. Run
checks runs the checks again on request.
Rotating or removing access
When the connection is identified by the organization, select Update credentials on the connection page and paste a new Admin key of the same organization; then revoke the old key. When it is identified by the key's fingerprint, a new key is a new identity and is refused: remove the connection and connect the new key instead.
To retire the connection, remove it in Costfluent and revoke its key on the OpenAI platform. Removing it erases the cost it imported (Remove a connection).
Troubleshooting
- OpenAI refused this key. The key is not an Admin key, or it was revoked. An Organization Owner creates Admin keys under the organization's settings.
- OpenAI has no costs endpoint for this key's organization. OpenAI answered that the Costs API does not exist for the organization. Check that the key belongs to an organization with API usage.
- This key belongs to another organization. Shown when updating credentials. Connect that organization, or that key, as a new connection.