---
title: Cost
description: Cost records the actual expenses associated with your AI systems, enabling AI Control Tower to compare these costs against productivity gains and calculate the net return on investment.
locale: en-US
canonical_url: https://www.servicenow.com/docs/r/australia/intelligent-experiences/mc-cost.html
release: australia
topic_type: concept
last_updated: "2026-10-09"
reading_time_minutes: 1
breadcrumb: [Explore, Measure AI system, Measure AI systems, AI Control Tower, Enable AI experiences]
---

# Cost

Cost records the actual expenses associated with your AI systems, enabling AI Control Tower to compare these costs against productivity gains and calculate the net return on investment.

Cost provides the expense data that AI Control Tower uses to calculate net AI return. The Cost framework evaluates savings and costs \(expenses\) to calculate net returns by monitoring spending on LLM tokens, and ServiceNow Assist usage.

To configure cost, set your organization’s average hourly rate, add token pricing for integrated LLM vendors, and add pricing for non-integrated vendors. For integrated vendors, you can also configure input and output token prices separately. After you review and submit the configuration, AI Control Tower uses the cost data to compare AI spend with productivity gains and derives net returns.

Only users with the AI steward role can configure cost.