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MidReal Story
Credit Crunch: A Tech Trio's Betrayal
Scenario:app to check openai api credits
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Mark Thompson
Alex Chen
Emily Johnson
“You mean, we don’t have any way to know when we used these credits?”
Alex asked, tapping away at his computer.
He was the most analytical person I knew, and the least prone to panic, but even he was looking a little pale.
I’d been feeling like this for the past week.
It didn’t help that we’d all gotten an extra charge on our credit cards this month because we’d somehow gone over the free credit tier.
We could afford it, but it was embarrassing.
It was going to be a bigger problem if we didn’t figure out what was consuming so many credits.
“I find that very hard to believe,” he said.
“Do you want me to call them?”
I asked, knowing full well that they’d tell me the same thing they’d told Alex: that the daily summary was all we were going to get.
Those of us who had access to the OpenAI API had made a pact not to use it for anything other than work and personal projects–no party tricks or pranks–because it could get revoked if OpenAI found out.
I pulled up my calendar and penciled in ‘API’ for the next day.
“I’ll give it a shot.
Maybe they’ll be nice enough to tell me something different.”
He gave me an amused look.
It was probably more likely that I’d make them feel bad enough for us to get some kind of consolation prize, like extra credits or something.
I wasn’t the most confrontational person in the world, but I was good at making people want to help me.
It had always been a useful skill; I just hoped I wouldn’t have to use it with OpenAI too often.
We all went back to our computers, but the tension in the room remained high after Alex’s revelation.
We were going to need to figure out what was going on pretty quickly if we wanted to avoid another surprise charge next month.
I knew Alex would be working on some kind of analysis of our credit usage as soon as he could, and I was already looking forward to seeing what he came up with.
I just hoped it would be in time.
Every time one of us tried to contact OpenAI, the response was the same: “We’re sorry, but we only provide a daily usage summary.
You can find it on the platform.”
I didn’t want to think about what would happen if we didn’t manage to get this under control.
We might not be able to do the kind of long-term coding projects that we wanted to do if we couldn’t keep our credit usage under control.
I wasn’t sure what I was going to do about it–I’d already tried to contact OpenAI about our issue, and gotten nowhere.
The only thing I could think to do was to keep track of my own credit usage throughout the day and see if there was anything I could find.
A few days later, I was still fiddling around with my computer when I heard a loud “Whoop!”
from behind me.
I turned around to see Mark grinning from ear to ear as he slapped something on the table next to him.
I recognized it immediately: a new Macbook Pro.
“app to check openai api credits” is out
I gasped, my eyes going wide.
“Wait, you mean…you did it?”
Mark nodded proudly.
I had no idea how he did it so quickly; Alex would know.
“That’s amazing!”
I said, walking over and picking up the laptop.
When I turned it on, there was a small window at the bottom of the screen that said:
“API credits used today: 0”
I felt like a kid on Christmas morning; this was exactly what we needed.
“It’s just a prototype for now,” Mark said.
“I’ll need to do some more testing to make sure it works correctly.
But if this works out, we’ll at least be able to see what’s going on with our credits.”
I couldn’t believe how quickly he’d gotten it done.
If this worked out, we could bring our credit usage under control and start coding again without worrying about going over our free tier.
But first things first.
I needed to make sure we were all on the same page about this new tool.
“Okay,” I said.
“This is great.But we still need to figure out how to stop using so many credits.Are you guys okay with this?
I turned to look at Alex, who was staring at the screen intently, as always.
He sat up a little straighter and looked at us.
“I think that sounds like a great idea,” he said.
“It’s not perfect since we can only check it manually, but it’s better than nothing.”
I felt a little guilty for not coming up with something like this sooner, but I was glad to hear that he was on board.
It was only a matter of time before he started looking into the code himself anyway, so it was good that he was okay with it now.
I turned to Mark, who was grinning at us again, his eyes sparkling with excitement.
“This is pretty cool,” he said, nodding in approval.
“If you need any help with the app, just let me know.”
I’d never asked Mark for help before, but I knew he’d be happy to do it for something like this.
He’d been a great friend to me for years, and I was happy to have him on board for this project too.
“No problem,” I said, “let’s do it.”
It took me a few minutes to get the hang of the app, but once I did, I was impressed by how easy it was to use.
The app connected directly to OpenAI’s platform and pulled the credit usage information in real time, showing us exactly when our credits were being used.
There wasn’t much detail beyond the times themselves–no indication of which user had consumed the credits or what kind of project they’d been working on–but it was still much better than nothing.
I knew right away that this was going to be a game-changer for us.
We could look back at the times when we’d used more credits than expected and try to figure out what had gone wrong: were we running inefficient code?
Were there patterns of usage that we could optimize?
There were so many possibilities, and I knew we were going to get to the bottom of it eventually.
I turned back to Mark, who was watching me with an expectant smile on his face.
“I love it!”
I said excitedly.
He grinned even wider and gave me a thumbs-up before disappearing back into his room.
