# Vercel EPD Cost Accountability RFC

## What changed

The artifact is no longer a generic COGS dashboard. It is now an internal-style RFC for how I would structure Vercel EPD finance cost accountability.

The main point is sharper:

> Use public Vercel vocabulary. Use synthetic numbers. Do not imply internal COGS.

## Core business insight

Vercel's EPD finance problem should not be framed as one blended "AI COGS" dashboard.

AI Gateway, v0-style generation, Fluid Compute, and Blob/CDN usage have different economics:

- **AI Gateway:** public docs describe zero-markup/pay-as-you-go model rates, including BYOK. The finance problem is pass-through accuracy, provider mix, token forecast, credit balance, and payment leakage.
- **v0-style generation:** margin-bearing product COGS. The finance problem is cost per generation, accepted output, retained user, and included usage limits.
- **Fluid Compute:** active CPU and provisioned memory behave differently. CPU pauses during I/O wait, while provisioned memory follows instance lifetime.
- **Blob/CDN:** cache HIT/MISS behavior matters. Blob operations, data transfer, Edge Requests, and Fast Origin Transfer need separate treatment.

## What the artifact demonstrates

- An RFC-style thesis for EPD cost accountability.
- A minimum data contract for usage events, vendor cost lines, workload owner maps, and pricing contracts.
- An allocation ladder: direct tag, deterministic usage map, modeled allocation, quarantine.
- A lightweight unit model that changes by workload type.
- Launch gates for scale-up decisions.

## Why this is better than the first draft

The first version looked plausible but generic. This version makes actual product/business distinctions from Vercel's public docs, avoids fake precision, and shows the operating judgment the role asks for.