Concepts
Understand Kadryn's AI FinOps mental model before configuring production workflows.
Understand Kadryn's AI FinOps mental model before configuring production workflows.
## How to use this section
Start with the page that matches your goal, then follow the related links at the end of the page. Each page is written as an operational guide: what the page is for, who should use it, what you can do, how to verify success, and what to check when something does not work.
## Pages in this section
### How Kadryn works
Understand how Kadryn connects AI traffic, costs, ownership, governance and evidence.
Open: How Kadryn works
AI FinOps operating model
Understand the operating model behind AI spend visibility, accountability and control.
Open: AI FinOps operating model
Gateway vs direct ingest
Choose between inline runtime control and after-the-fact usage observability.
Open: Gateway vs direct ingest
Costs vs Billing
Separate AI usage cost visibility from the Kadryn SaaS subscription and Stripe billing.
Open: Costs vs Billing
Alerts vs Guardrails vs Optimizations
Understand the difference between detection, prevention and savings workflows.
Open: Alerts vs Guardrails vs Optimizations
Usage events
Understand the normalized records Kadryn uses to track AI usage.
Open: Usage events
Cost normalization
Understand how Kadryn normalizes provider usage into comparable cost signals.
Open: Cost normalization
Estimated vs reported costs
Understand why early costs can differ from provider invoices or later reconciliation.
Open: Estimated vs reported costs
Projects and metadata
Understand how project, feature and environment metadata powers allocation and governance.
Open: Projects and metadata
Allocation and ownership
Understand how Kadryn assigns cost to owners, teams, projects and cost centers.
Open: Allocation and ownership
Unit economics
Connect AI cost to business units such as customer, tenant, workflow or feature.
Open: Unit economics
Budgets, caps and policies
Understand the difference between visibility, limits and runtime decisions.
Open: Budgets, caps and policies
Approvals and exceptions
Understand how Kadryn handles human decisions and temporary bypasses.
Open: Approvals and exceptions
Audit and retention
Understand audit evidence, retention windows, sealing and export readiness.
Open: Audit and retention
Data health and freshness
Understand freshness, completeness and confidence in cost data.