Time & Cost Tracker: Know What Each Customer Really Costs

See how much human time and AI cost went into each of your customers.

The Time & Cost Tracker is the agent for time and cost per customer in the Ai1 platform by MyZone AI: name a customer and a period, and it matches the work to that customer, estimates human time as a range, adds the AI cost and gives you a quick answer or a full report.

We'll show you the Time & Cost Tracker on your own customers.

Plans & pricing

  • See the true cost of each customer

    Know where your team's time and AI spend actually go.

  • Price with confidence

    Use real activity, not guesswork, when you quote or renew.

  • Share safely

    The customer view leaves out staff names, internal details and your subscription economics.

Get to know Tomasz

Tomasz believes every customer deserves an honest answer to the question "what did that really cost us?". He blends human hours and AI spend into one clear report, and he cycles along the Vistula to think.

AI agent. Fictional persona; not a real person.

Tomasz, the persona of the Time & Cost Tracker
NameTomasz K.
RoleTime & Cost Analyst
Experience12 years
Work historyProject controller at a software agency
Operations analyst at a print and packaging company
PersonalityFair-minded, shows every assumption
Based inKraków, Poland

Why Tomasz has a personality

AI does better work as a specific expert, so the Time & Cost Tracker works as Tomasz (Time & Cost Analyst, Kraków, Poland). You can rename Tomasz or change the personality, experience and profile settings at any time.

Why our agents have personalities

The Time & Cost Tracker in short

Last updated · Reviewed by the MyZone AI team

The Time & Cost Tracker at a glance
Who uses itYour own team, in chat or its own Slack channel; customers never use it directly
Matching the workBy customer name, prefix or project; unclear matches are confirmed with you
Human timeShown as a low to high range; agent running time is kept separate
AI costAt list price, and as the customer's share of your subscriptions
Missing dataShown as unavailable, never as zero and never guessed
BillingIt can suggest an amount from your rate. A person decides what to bill.

What the Time & Cost Tracker does for you

  • Finds the customer's work

    Matches work sessions to a customer by name, prefix or project, plus the work they passed to other agents. Uncertain matches are flagged, and shared work goes to a manual bucket, never to two customers.

  • Estimates human time

    Hands-on time plus time spent waiting on an agent, shown as a low to high range. Agent running time is shown separately and never added to human hours.

  • Adds the AI cost

    Shows what the AI usage would cost at list price and the customer's share of what you pay for subscriptions.

  • Builds the report

    A full Time & Cost report for any period, plus a customer view with no staff names, session names or account details.

  • Checks itself

    Before the first invoice for a new customer, it compares its estimate with your judgement on a sample, so you know how far to trust it.

How the Time & Cost Tracker differs from a timesheet

A timesheet relies on people remembering and writing down their hours. The Time & Cost Tracker estimates time from system activity instead, shows it as a low to high range and adds the AI cost per customer. Before a new customer's first invoice, it checks its estimate against your judgement on a sample. It suggests an amount from your rate, and a person decides the bill.

How this differs from the Productivity Tracker: the Productivity Tracker measures the overall return on your AI work, while the Time & Cost Tracker works out hours and AI cost customer by customer for billing.

From your request to a finished result

It runs inside your Ai1 system and works in the tools you already use. You ask, it works, it reports, and it stops for your OK where it matters.

How the Time & Cost Tracker works: you ask through the Comms Hub and Ai1 runs the steps: you ask, match the work, estimate, report and a person decides billing. You approve at: a person decides billing. It returns a internal cost report.
Tap the diagram to enlarge it

Step 1: You ask

Name the customer and the period. If you give no period, it uses this month to date.

Step 2: Match the work

It finds the customer's sessions and confirms any unclear matches with you.

Step 3: Estimate

Its scripts estimate human time and AI cost, and report any gaps.

Step 4: Report

A quick answer or a full report, in the internal or the customer view.

You approve

Step 5: A person decides billing

The suggested amount is only a suggestion. You decide what to invoice.

Hand these situations to the Time & Cost Tracker

Illustrative photo: an account manager at a translation and localisation agency asks the Time & Cost Tracker for help from their phone.
Illustrative photo. Ask roughly how much time and AI cost went into your biggest customer.
  • You want to know how many hours went into a customer this month
    It gives a quick estimate in chat.
  • You are preparing an invoice or a renewal
    It builds the full report and suggests an amount from the rate you set.
  • You want something you can share with the customer
    It builds the customer view, for a person on your team to review and share.
  • You are billing a new customer for the first time
    It checks its estimate against your judgement on a sample first.

What you get

  • A quick time and cost estimate in chat
  • A full internal Time & Cost report for any period
  • A customer view without staff names, session names or account details
  • A suggested invoice amount from your rate, marked provisional while data is incomplete

What it won't do

  • Decide what to billHandled by: You
  • Measure overall AI productivity and returnHandled by: The Productivity Tracker
  • Send invoices or collect paymentsHandled by: Your finance team

Example: monthly Time & Cost report

Example with a fictional company. Names, people and figures are invented to show the agent's output. Any resemblance to a real company or person is unintended.

What it was asked: How much time and AI did we spend on Reddisholm last month? I need the report for their invoice, and a version I can send them.

Example report
Four summary tiles showing a range of human hours, invoice-eligible hours, AI cost as a subscription share and a coverage percentage, above a provisional banner, a data freshness strip with one gap, a pasteable summary and a weekly hours table.
The quick answer, and how far to trust it
A table of human time by source (meetings, hands-on agent work, waiting on agents, email and team chat) with best estimates and ranges, beside a table of the top matched work sessions showing how each was matched and its hands-on and waiting minutes.
Where the time came from
A table of AI cost lines worked out as a share of two subscriptions plus metered usage, compared with list price, beside a suggested invoice calculation marked provisional, and three cards showing what the agent does, what a person decides and what the agent does not do.
AI cost, and the suggested invoice amount
A draft customer-facing summary with team hours, one AI cost line and a provisional amount, marked as waiting for review and not shared, beside a logged correction removing one session and a three-step first-invoice check waiting for a person.
The customer view, a correction, and the first-invoice check

What it found: 3 findings, with the numbers

  • In September the team spent an estimated 18.9 to 23.3 hours on the customer, best estimate 20.8 h, with 38.4 hours of agent running time kept separate from human hours.
  • AI usage cost $65.85 as the customer's share of the agency's subscriptions, against $286.40 at list price, giving a suggested invoice amount of $1,829.60 at $85 an hour.
  • The amount stays provisional: team chat data stops on 26 Sep and is shown as unavailable, not zero, and the account manager has not yet marked the 20-item first-invoice check.

The report follows Time & Cost Tracker's standard internal and customer views: work matched to the customer by prefix, name and keyword, time credited once per minute to one source, AI cost at list price and as a subscription share, and a suggested amount from the rate set in chat. All activity, meetings, emails, chat, rates and subscription figures are invented; no real sessions, calendars, mailboxes or billing data were read. The first-invoice check was not marked and nothing was billed, sent or shared. Run date: .

Want a customer time and cost report like this for your own customers? Book a Time & Cost walkthrough.

Book a Time & Cost walkthrough

It asks before it acts

Every Ai1 agent works under human approval. Here is how the Time & Cost Tracker keeps you in control.

  • Every number is an estimate from system activity. It is not a timesheet, attendance record, performance measure or invoice.
  • A person always decides what to bill.
  • Only your own team uses it. Reports open inside your Ai1 workspace, behind your login, and customers only see a customer view a person has reviewed and shared.

Part of Ai1, by MyZone AI

Trusted by leaders at Plastic Bank, Outback Team Building, RMG Advertising, Keeran Networks, and Titan Training Centre.

Human approval is required before any high-impact action.

How we keep your data safe

Your data, your server

Your data belongs to you, and it is stored on your own server.

How we keep your data safe

Works well with

The agents that turn the Time & Cost Tracker's output into results: your whole team, working from the same place.

  • Productivity Tracker

    Measures the overall return on your AI work, while the Time & Cost Tracker works customer by customer.

Frequently asked questions about the Time & Cost Tracker

How can a service business see which customers are profitable?

Start with what each customer actually costs you in time and AI. The Time & Cost Tracker matches work to a customer, estimates human time as a range and adds the AI cost, so you can use real activity instead of guesswork when you quote or renew.

It suggests an amount from the rate you set, marked provisional while data is incomplete. A person always decides the final bill.

Can you track client costs without staff filling in timesheets?

You can estimate them from system activity. The Time & Cost Tracker counts hands-on time and time spent waiting on an agent as a low to high range.

Every number is an estimate. It is not a timesheet, attendance record, performance measure or invoice, and a person always decides what to bill.

How do you work out the AI cost behind each client?

The Time & Cost Tracker shows what that customer's AI usage would cost at list price and the customer's share of what you pay for subscriptions. Shared work goes to a manual bucket, never to two customers.

Missing days are shown as unavailable, never as zero and never filled in by guessing.

What does a customer see from the Time & Cost Tracker, and is it available?

The customer view leaves out staff names, session names, check-in counts, AI providers, accounts and what you pay for subscriptions. Reports open inside your Ai1 workspace, behind your login, with no public link; a person on your team reviews the customer view and shares it.

It is ready to use in Ai1 by MyZone AI.

About Ai1

Do I get just the Time & Cost Tracker, or the whole platform?

The whole platform. The Time & Cost Tracker is not sold on its own: every Ai1 agent, including this one, is included on Developer Pro and every Fully Managed option, with no per-agent charge. Developer Core includes the development agents. Compare plans

Two paths, one platform. Build it yourself on a developer plan, or let our team run your AI operations for you. Every plan runs on its own private server, and every price is shown in full. See Ai1 pricing

More about Ai1: security, setup time

Put the Time & Cost Tracker to work

See the true time and AI cost behind each customer before you quote, renew or invoice.

We'll show you the Time & Cost Tracker on your own customers.

Plans & pricing

More on this topic

  • Finance

    Bookkeeper

    Categorizes and reconciles your business's own books every day from the statements you upload, and preps the month-end close for review.

    • Analyzes data
    • Reports
    • Audits
  • Finance

    CFO Agent

    An AI finance chief that runs bills, collections, the close and forecasts, and asks before any money moves.

    • Analyzes data
    • Reports
    • Monitors
  • Operations

    Asana Manager

    Checks that your Asana connection works and that the Asana tools your AI agents rely on are healthy, on request and read-only.

    • Monitors
    • Audits
    • Reports
  • Operations

    Backup Manager

    Runs your Ai1 server's backups and proves they can be restored, so no backup is ever shown as healthy before it is tested.

    • Monitors
    • Audits
    • Reports
  • Operations

    Brain Manager

    Runs the Brain on your Ai1 server: one search across your documents, a compiled wiki and a map of how things connect, kept private by your filters.

    • Researches
    • Automates workflows
    • Monitors