Customer tracking and usage-based billing for OpenAI APIs with arbitrary metadata support
Project description
cmdrdata-openai
Customer tracking and usage-based billing for OpenAI APIs
Transform your OpenAI integration into a customer-aware, usage-based billing system. Track exactly what each customer consumes and bill them accordingly with fine-grained precision.
🛡️ Production Ready
Extremely robust and reliable - Built for production environments with:
- Resilient Tracking: OpenAI calls succeed even if tracking fails.
- Non-blocking I/O: Fire-and-forget tracking never slows down your application.
- Automatic Retries: Failed tracking attempts are automatically retried with exponential backoff.
- Thread-Safe Context: Safely track usage across multi-threaded and async applications.
- Enterprise Security: API key sanitization and input validation.
💰 Customer Tracking & Usage-Based Billing
cmdrdata-openai enables fine-grained customer tracking and usage-based billing for your AI application:
Customer-Level Visibility
- Per-customer token consumption - Track exactly how much each customer uses
- Usage attribution - Every API call is attributed to a specific customer
- Customer context management - Automatic customer tracking across your application
Fine-Grained Billing Control
- Custom pricing models - Set your own rates beyond simple token counts
- Arbitrary metadata tracking - Attach any billing-relevant data to each API call
- Multi-dimensional billing - Bill based on tokens, requests, models, or custom metrics
- Real-time usage monitoring - Track costs and usage as they happen
What Gets Tracked
- Token usage (input/output tokens for accurate billing)
- Model information (gpt-5, gpt-4o, gpt-4, gpt-3.5-turbo, etc.)
- Customer identification (your customer IDs)
- Custom metadata (request types, feature usage, geographic data, etc.)
- Performance metrics (response times, error rates)
🚀 Quick Start
1. Install
pip install cmdrdata-openai
Note: This package wraps the official OpenAI SDK. If you already have openai installed, CmdrData will use your existing version. If not, it will install a compatible version automatically. Learn more about dependency management →
2. Replace Your OpenAI Import
It's a drop-in replacement. All you need to do is change how you initialize the client and add the customer_id to your API calls.
Before:
from openai import OpenAI
# This client is not tracked
client = OpenAI(api_key="sk-...")
After:
from cmdrdata_openai import TrackedOpenAI
# This client automatically tracks usage
client = TrackedOpenAI(
api_key="sk-...",
tracker_key="tk-..." # Get this from your cmdrdata dashboard
)
# Add customer_id to your calls to enable tracking
response = client.chat.completions.create(
model="gpt-5", # Supports GPT-5, GPT-4o, GPT-4, etc.
messages=[{"role": "user", "content": "Hello!"}],
customer_id="customer-123"
)
That's it! Every API call now automatically tracks token usage, performance, and errors.
📖 Usage Patterns
Flask/FastAPI Integration
from flask import Flask, request, jsonify
from cmdrdata_openai import TrackedOpenAI, set_customer_context, clear_customer_context
app = Flask(__name__)
client = TrackedOpenAI(
api_key="your-openai-key",
tracker_key="your-cmdrdata-key"
)
@app.route('/chat', methods=['POST'])
def chat():
data = request.json
customer_id = data['customer_id']
# Set context for this request
set_customer_context(customer_id)
try:
response = client.chat.completions.create(
model="gpt-5",
messages=[{"role": "user", "content": data['message']}]
)
return jsonify({"response": response.choices[0].message.content})
finally:
clear_customer_context()
Context Manager (Automatic Cleanup)
from cmdrdata_openai import customer_context
with customer_context("customer-456"):
response1 = client.chat.completions.create(...)
response2 = client.chat.completions.create(...)
# Both calls tracked for customer-456
# Context automatically cleared
Async Support
from cmdrdata_openai import AsyncTrackedOpenAI
client = AsyncTrackedOpenAI(
api_key="your-openai-key",
tracker_key="your-cmdrdata-key"
)
response = await client.chat.completions.create(
model="gpt-5",
messages=[{"role": "user", "content": "Hello!"}],
customer_id="customer-789"
)
💎 Fine-Grained Billing with Custom Metadata
Track arbitrary metadata with each API call to enable sophisticated billing models:
# Example: SaaS application with feature-based billing
response = client.chat.completions.create(
model="gpt-5",
messages=[{"role": "user", "content": "Analyze this data..."}],
customer_id="customer-123",
# Custom metadata for fine-grained billing
custom_metadata={
"feature": "data_analysis",
"plan_tier": "premium",
"region": "us-east",
"request_size": "large",
"processing_type": "batch"
}
)
# Example: Usage-based pricing by request complexity
response = client.chat.completions.create(
model="gpt-5",
messages=long_conversation_history,
customer_id="customer-456",
custom_metadata={
"request_complexity": "high",
"conversation_length": len(long_conversation_history),
"business_unit": "sales",
"priority": "high"
}
)
Billing Use Cases:
- Feature-based pricing: Bill differently for different app features
- Complexity-based pricing: Higher rates for complex requests
- Geographic pricing: Different rates by customer region
- Plan-tier pricing: Premium customers pay different rates
- Volume discounts: Track cumulative usage for volume pricing
- Department billing: Track usage by business unit or team
🔧 Configuration
Basic Configuration
client = TrackedOpenAI(
api_key="your-openai-key", # OpenAI API key
tracker_key="your-cmdrdata-key", # cmdrdata API key
tracker_endpoint="https://api.cmdrdata.ai/api/events", # cmdrdata endpoint
tracker_timeout=5.0 # Timeout for tracking requests
)
Environment Variables
export OPENAI_API_KEY="your-openai-key"
export CMDRDATA_API_KEY="your-cmdrdata-key"
import os
client = TrackedOpenAI(
api_key=os.getenv("OPENAI_API_KEY"),
tracker_key=os.getenv("CMDRDATA_API_KEY")
)
🎛️ Advanced Features
Disable Tracking for Specific Calls
response = client.chat.completions.create(
model="gpt-4",
messages=[{"role": "user", "content": "Internal query"}],
track_usage=False # This call won't be tracked
)
Priority System
Customer ID resolution follows this priority:
- Explicit
customer_idparameter (highest priority) - Customer ID from context
- No tracking (warning logged)
set_customer_context("context-customer")
# This will be tracked for "explicit-customer"
response = client.chat.completions.create(
model="gpt-4",
messages=[{"role": "user", "content": "Hello"}],
customer_id="explicit-customer" # Overrides context
)
Error Handling
cmdrdata-openai is designed to never break your OpenAI calls:
- Tracking failures are logged but don't raise exceptions
- OpenAI calls proceed normally even if tracking fails
- Background tracking doesn't block your application
# Even if cmdrdata is down, this still works
response = client.chat.completions.create(
model="gpt-4",
messages=[{"role": "user", "content": "Hello"}],
customer_id="customer-123"
)
# OpenAI call succeeds, tracking failure is logged
📊 What Gets Tracked
For each OpenAI API call, cmdrdata-openai automatically tracks:
- Customer ID (from parameter or context)
- Model used (e.g., gpt-4, gpt-3.5-turbo)
- Token usage (input tokens, output tokens, total tokens)
- Provider (openai)
- Timestamp (when the call was made)
- Metadata (response ID, finish reason, etc.)
Example tracked event:
{
"customer_id": "customer-123",
"model": "gpt-4",
"input_tokens": 15,
"output_tokens": 25,
"total_tokens": 40,
"provider": "openai",
"timestamp": "2025-07-04T10:30:00Z",
"metadata": {
"response_id": "chatcmpl-abc123",
"finish_reason": "stop"
}
}
🔧 How It Works
CmdrData-OpenAI uses a proxy pattern to wrap your existing OpenAI client:
- You import CmdrData:
from cmdrdata_openai import TrackedOpenAI - CmdrData imports OpenAI: Uses your installed
openaipackage - Creates a wrapper: Wraps the OpenAI client with tracking
- Forwards everything: All OpenAI methods work exactly the same
- Tracks usage: Intercepts responses to track token usage
This means:
- ✅ No conflicts with your OpenAI version
- ✅ All OpenAI features continue working
- ✅ You can upgrade OpenAI independently
- ✅ Zero performance overhead (async tracking)
🔌 Compatibility
- OpenAI Models: Full support for GPT-5, GPT-4o, GPT-4, GPT-3.5, DALL-E, Whisper, and all OpenAI models
- OpenAI SDK: Compatible with OpenAI SDK v1.0.0+ (tested with 1.99.0+)
- Python: Supports Python 3.9, 3.10, 3.11, 3.12, and 3.13
- Async: Full support for both sync and async usage
- Frameworks: Works with Flask, FastAPI, Django, etc.
📦 Installation
# Basic installation
pip install cmdrdata-openai
# For development
git clone https://github.com/cmdrdata-ai/cmdrdata-openai.git
cd cmdrdata-openai
uv pip install -e .[dev]
🛠️ Development
Setup
# Install uv (if not already installed)
curl -LsSf https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | sh
# Install with dev dependencies
uv pip install -e .[dev]
Running Tests
# Run all tests
uv run pytest
# Run with coverage reporting
uv run pytest --cov=cmdrdata_openai --cov-report=term-missing
# Run specific test file
uv run pytest tests/test_client.py -v
Code Quality
# Format code
uv run black cmdrdata_openai/
# Sort imports
uv run isort cmdrdata_openai/
# Type checking
uv run mypy cmdrdata_openai/ --ignore-missing-imports
# Security check
uv run safety check
CI/CD
The project uses GitHub Actions for:
- Continuous Integration - Tests across Python 3.9-3.13
- Code Quality - Black, isort, mypy, safety checks
- Coverage Reporting - >90% test coverage with Codecov
- Automated Publishing - PyPI releases on GitHub releases
🆘 Troubleshooting
Common Issues
"tracker_key is required" error:
# Make sure you provide the tracker_key
client = TrackedOpenAI(
api_key="your-openai-key",
tracker_key="your-cmdrdata-key" # Don't forget this!
)
No usage tracking:
# Make sure you provide customer_id or set context
set_customer_context("customer-123")
# OR
response = client.chat.completions.create(..., customer_id="customer-123")
Tracking timeouts:
# Increase timeout for slow networks
client = TrackedOpenAI(
api_key="your-openai-key",
tracker_key="your-cmdrdata-key",
tracker_timeout=10.0 # Increase from default 5.0
)
Get Help
- 📧 Email: hello@cmdrdata.ai
- 🐛 Issues: GitHub Issues
- 📖 Docs: Documentation
📄 License
This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.
🚨 Important Notes
- Never commit API keys to version control
- Always clean up context in web applications
- Test with small limits before production deployment
- Monitor tracking errors in your logs
🤝 Contributing
- Fork the repository
- Create a feature branch
- Add tests for new functionality
- Run the test suite
- Submit a pull request
For more details, see CONTRIBUTING.md.
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