Going Broke with Sub Agents
Resolved 💬 0 comments Opened Feb 22, 2026 by MrLightspeed Closed Feb 22, 2026
I’m seeing unexpectedly high costs whenever sub-agents are used in Codex CLI. The feature is useful, but the current cost behavior makes it hard to use safely in normal development workflows.
Main issues:
- Sub-agent usage can multiply spend very quickly.
- Cost impact is not clearly shown before launching sub-agents.
- It is hard to predict final cost from the prompt or plan.
- There are not enough guardrails to prevent accidental overspend.
- The cost for a plus-up is REDICULOUS for PRO USERS - like WTF!
What I need:
- A global session budget that hard-stops execution.
- A post-run cost breakdown by sub-agent and by tool call.
- A built-in cost control method so I can work throughout the week instead of burning tokens to 0 on day 2.
I want to keep building using sub-agents, but right now the pricing transparency and controls are not sufficient for practical day-to-day use. Please prioritize cost visibility and budget controls. Because, as much as I love what you have unleashed, it's obviously showing off want all this capability can do while charging my debit card for more.