> ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.monk.io/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Cost and usage > What you pay for, how Monk estimates cost before you deploy, and how to track usage and set billing alerts Running an app with Monk involves three separate bills: | Bill | Who charges it | What for | | - | - | - | | Cloud cost | Your cloud provider, directly | The machines, disks and managed services in your account | | Monk | Monk | Your subscription, plus Monk's infrastructure fee on the clusters it manages | | Coding agent | Your coding agent's provider | Your coding agent subscription | Monk never pays your cloud bill for you, and your cloud provider doesn't bill you for Monk. See [Pricing](https://monk.io/pricing) for plans. ## Estimates before you deploy Monk shows cost before it creates anything: * **Cluster estimates.** For a node specification (provider, region, instance type, node count, disk and GPUs), Monk estimates the hourly and monthly cost, including Monk's infrastructure fee. Nothing is provisioned. * **Deploy plans.** The plan you approve in the [local dashboard](/getting-started/local-dashboard) includes the cost impact of the change, where it can be estimated. * **Current price.** For a running cluster, Monk can report its current price. ``` /monk how much would a 2-node cluster on DigitalOcean cost per month? ``` Estimates are advisory and cover the resources in the plan. Don't expect them to include data transfer, request-based charges, or third-party services billed by their own providers. Your provider's invoice is the final number. ## Usage **Usage** shows cloud cost and the Monk fee per cluster for the current month. For an organization, you can also look up earlier months. ``` /monk show this month's usage ``` Each cluster in usage is marked running or stopped. That status reflects whether the platform is currently tracking cost for the cluster, not whether its machines are up. A live cluster can briefly show as stopped, for example after a restart. For the live state of a cluster, ask Monk for its status. The web dashboard shows the same figures. **Clusters** lists cloud cost this month for each cluster, and **Plan** shows cloud cost, the Monk fee and credits. ## Billing alerts Organizations can turn on email alerts in Settings, or by asking Monk: * **Fee alerts** when Monk's fee crosses thresholds you set * **Long-running cluster alerts** about clusters that have been running for a long time * **The address** the alerts go to, which defaults to the organization's Changing alerts from your coding agent opens an approval in the local dashboard. ``` /monk email me when the Monk fee passes $200 this month ``` ## Keeping cost down These choices are yours, and Monk can carry them out: * Pick the provider, region and instance size when you [choose a cloud](/guides/choose-a-cloud), and compare estimates first. * Remove nodes you don't need. See [Scale and resize](/guides/scale-and-resize). * Put preview environments on a schedule, or run them in cluster mode on nodes you already have. See [Environments and previews](/concepts/environments-and-previews). * Delete clusters and environments you've stopped using. * When you [deploy an existing app](/guides/deploy-existing-app), the new environment and the original both cost money until you switch traffic and retire one. ## Related Ask about and control spending Sizing and providers Plan, Clusters and Settings Who can create and delete clusters This documentation is built and hosted on [Mintlify](https://mintlify.com), a developer documentation platform.