MCP Cost Profiles
Assign credit costs to individual MCP tools for budget tracking and enforcement.
What is a cost profile?
A cost profile maps each MCP tool to a credit cost. When an agent calls a tool, SatGate deducts that many credits from the agent's budget. Credits are abstract units — you define the exchange rate (e.g., 1 credit = $0.01).
Setting tool costs
Go to MCP Cost Profile in the dashboard.
You'll see a list of all discovered tools from your connected upstreams. For each tool, set a credit cost:
| Tool | Upstream | Cost (credits) | Rationale |
|---|---|---|---|
| ping | built-in | 0 | Health check, no cost |
| echo | test-upstream | 1 | Trivial compute |
| calculator | test-upstream | 2 | Light compute |
| http_fetch | test-upstream | 10 | External network call |
Wildcard matching
Use wildcards to set default costs for groups of tools:
*— matches all tools (default fallback cost)db_*— matches all database tools- Specific tool names always override wildcards
Cost resolution order
- Exact tool name match (e.g.,
http_fetch: 10) - Wildcard match (e.g.,
http_*: 5) - Default wildcard (
*: 1) - If no match: 0 credits (free)
Tips
- Start low. Set all tools to 1 credit and watch the Shadow Report. Adjust after you see real usage patterns.
- Price by impact. Tools that hit external APIs, write data, or cost you money should cost more credits.
- Use 0 for free tools. Health checks, ping, and read-only tools can be 0 — they won't count against budgets.