AI Spend Audit

You know your AI spend.
You don't know what it should be.

Every AI-powered company has two numbers: what they pay, and what that same work should cost. Most know the first. Almost none have calculated the second. The difference is your recoverable, a direct line to your gross margin. We calculate it in 48 hours, from your invoices and workflow descriptions. No code access. No infrastructure review.

No finding. No fee. Only pay if the audit finds a problem.
Implied cost ~$2,100 per month · at zero waste
The gap ~$4,100 $49,200 per year · recoverable
Actual bill $6,200 per month · confirmed invoices
Actual engagement i
SectorLegal technology
StageSeed · VC-backed
Team14 people
Monthly AI spend$7,520
IQS9.0 / 10 · ±10%
The Bleeding Budget
$10,000Monthly spend
~$3,500Est. waste
~$42,000Recoverable / yr
At $10k/month, typical waste is 30–40%. Around $3,500 per month going nowhere.
The Situation

AI spend grew fast. The financial discipline that should have grown alongside it did not.

The invoice tells you what you spent. It does not tell you what you should have spent, where that spend belongs in your accounts, or what it is doing to your gross margin. Most companies have never calculated those numbers. The gap is already in their financials.

  • What proportion of your AI spend is generating output versus sitting idle
  • Whether that spend belongs in cost of goods or operating expense
  • What your gross margin actually looks like once AI costs are classified correctly
  • What a specific, recoverable amount in monthly dollars looks like

This is an accounting problem, not an engineering one. We work from what you tell us about your spend and your workflows. The output is a document your CFO or lead investor can read without a translator.

84%
of companies report AI costs cutting into gross margins by more than 6 percentage points
AI Cost Governance Report, 2025
16×
difference in cost between the most and least efficient model choices for identical tasks
Redis LLM Token Report, 2026
15%
of growing companies can forecast AI costs within 10% accuracy
Benchmarkit / Mavvrik, 2025

What the engagement produces

One document · 48 hours
01
What your AI spend actually is

Your invoices show what you paid. We show what those payments represent: what belongs in cost of goods, what belongs in operating expense, and what is neither because it is not generating output.

02
Every finding, expressed in dollars

Each finding is expressed as a monthly cost, an annual consequence, and a payback period measured in working days. Not a recommendation to implement something. A calculation of what a specific gap is costing you right now.

03
Your gross margin, verified

Calculated, documented, and explained. Whether that means a reclassification or a confirmation that the number you hold is already correct. Either way, you arrive at investor conversations holding a figure that has been tested, not assumed.

04
A section written for your data room

Written in the register of a due diligence conversation, not an engineering review. Your CFO and your lead investor can read it without a translator. That is the point.

Three steps. Forty-eight hours.

From first contact to final report
01 15 minutes
The Diagnostic Call

A structured conversation about your company, your spend, and what is worrying you most financially. Not a technical review session. No preparation needed. You will know within the first few minutes whether the audit is likely to find something material enough to matter before your next raise.

02 Around 10 minutes
The Intake Form

Covers your spend figures by category, the workflows your company runs, and the tools you use. No code access. No system credentials. No infrastructure review. Everything we need is captured in plain language, the same things you would tell a CFO, not an engineer.

03 48 hours
The Report

A financial document delivered to your inbox. Every finding stated in monthly dollars, annual consequence, and gross margin impact. An optional 30-minute walkthrough is included at no charge for founders who want to discuss the numbers before a board meeting or investor conversation. If the audit finds nothing material, there is no fee.

Who engages

Three types of client
01
Founders heading into a raise

Investors correct AI cost classifications in due diligence regardless of what your model says. The gross margin question will come. The only variable is whether you already hold a clean, documented answer when it does, or whether they produce one for you.

02
Founders who need a number, not advice

Your team already knows the AI landscape. What you do not have is a clean financial calculation of what your specific spend is costing you in gross margin terms, expressed in a format that survives a due diligence conversation. That is what this produces.

03
Anyone watching the bill grow

AI spend scales with your product. If you cannot currently say what proportion of that spend is generating proportionate output, or whether it belongs in COGS or OpEx, the next funding conversation will surface those questions before you are ready for them.

The founder
Nikith
Founder, Rush of Read
LinkedIn →

Years working inside early-stage ventures, guiding founders through due diligence, preparing investor-facing materials, and supporting companies from first cheque to seed round, made one pattern impossible to ignore.

AI spend was scaling fast across every company in the portfolio. The financial discipline around it was not. Founders heading into raises could tell investors what they paid. Almost none had calculated what they should have paid, or what the gap was doing to their gross margin. Every time that question surfaced in a due diligence conversation, it was too late to prepare a clean answer.

Rush of Read exists to calculate that number before the conversation happens.

Before it compounds

The gap between what you pay and what you should
is already in your numbers.
We'll find it.

No finding. No fee.

The diagnostic call is free. The audit fee applies only if we find something material: a recoverable cost, a misclassified expense, or a gap in your cost model. If the engagement finds nothing worth paying for, you pay nothing.

Book a Free 15-Minute Call
15-minute diagnostic call · free
No code access · no system credentials required
Confirmation within one business day
A rush of read.
An end to red.