The 5-Minute Cost Audit Before Your Q3 Budget Locks
The Departure
Last week I told you to treat your AI like borrowed intelligence and stress-test your stack for the tool getting pulled. That was half the job. Resilience is one kind of stack health. What you're actually paying every month is the other kind, and almost nobody checks it until the invoices pile up.
Q2 closes Monday. Q3 budgets open Tuesday. This is the last clean Thursday to run the numbers before you have to defend them.
So let's get you a number.
The Co-Pilot
Tool: Claude Opus 4.8 via claude.ai. Stable, available, and untouched by the Fable 5 situation (both Fable 5 and Mythos are still offline, with no reinstatement date). This is the model to run your audit on.
The Use Case: A paste-and-go cost audit. You drop in your AI and SaaS subscriptions with monthly costs, and you get back a keep, replace, or consolidate call on each one, plus your current spend, your projected spend, and your annual savings in a single table you can read in five minutes.
The Prompt (paste one thing first: your AI and SaaS tools with the monthly cost next to each. Then add this):
"You are a fractional CFO reviewing my AI and software subscriptions. Here is my list with monthly costs: [paste]. For each tool: (1) say in one line what it actually does for me; (2) flag any other tool on this list that overlaps with it; (3) tell me whether Claude Opus 4.8, ChatGPT, or a tool I already pay for could cover its core job at the same cost or lower; (4) give me one call per tool: keep, replace, consolidate, or pause. Then output a table with three totals at the bottom: my current monthly spend, my projected monthly spend after your recommendations, and my projected annual savings."
New here, or did this get forwarded to you? You don't need any prior dispatch. List your tools, put the monthly cost next to each, and run it cold. The audit works with no setup.
And it runs on your phone. Type the list into the Claude app from a gate or a back seat, run it, and screenshot the table. That table is the point.
The Upgrade
Topic: Why this week, one correction, and what to skip
The prices you pay are subsidized, and the subsidy is the whole story. OpenAI's audited 2025 financials surfaced this month: about $13 billion in revenue against about $34 billion in costs. That's a roughly $21 billion loss for the year. SemiAnalysis pegs it at the user level too: a $100 to $200/month Claude Max plan can cost Anthropic up to $8,000/month in compute, and ChatGPT Pro can run OpenAI up to $14,000/month. And today, June 24, OpenAI announced its own inference chip ("Jalapeno," built with Broadcom) to cut exactly those costs. Better economics for the labs doesn't promise you lower prices. It means pricing is in motion. Capture your baseline now, while you can still see it clearly.
One correction from last week. In #023, I implied Copilot Cowork was a no-extra-cost AI layer for anyone on Microsoft 365. That wasn't quite right, and a few of you who went looking probably hit a paywall. Cowork needs the Microsoft 365 Copilot license plus usage-based billing on top. It isn't free on base M365. Here's why it matters this week: Microsoft launches new bundled M365 Business SKUs with Copilot included on July 1, one week out. So if you're about to add a standalone AI subscription, wait a week. Check whether the July 1 bundle already covers it before you pay for both. (Microsoft also claims Cowork runs 30-40% cheaper than Claude, but that's their own internal number, not independently tested, so don't bank on it.)
Skipping this week. Sakana's "Fugu" multi-agent platform dropped on June 22 with no validation or pricing, and OpenAI's GPT-5.5-Cyber is rolling out to trusted partners. Both interesting. Neither one changes what you do before your next budget meeting.
The Landing
Five minutes today. Open Claude Opus 4.8. Paste your AI and SaaS list with the monthly cost next to each tool. Run the audit prompt. Screenshot the table.
That screenshot is your Q3 starting point. Walk into the budget conversation with a number instead of a guess, and you'll be the one in the room who actually knows what the stack costs.
Q2 closes Monday. Do the audit before then, not after.
Safe Travels,
Marcellus