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Know what AI costs. See what you get back.

Understand spending, share budgets and connect AI use to the work it supports.

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Buy tokens, rent GPUs, or own the rack?

Open-weight models are now good enough to make self-hosting a financial question rather than a capability one. I modelled four options, an office rack, colocation, rented GPUs and per-token APIs, to find where each one actually wins. The answer turns on utilisation, and it isn't the one the internet keeps giving.

Turn a $3m AI bill into $1.9m

Most teams overpay for AI twice without noticing: they run everything through the default flagship model, and they buy the tokens on a metered plan they can't see into. An intelligent proxy fixes both. Here is the maths, a calculator you can drag, and where Flowstate fits.

Start with the work All use cases

Understand AI spending and value

See where the budget goes and what the business gets back.

Share one AI budget across your tools

Fund people, teams and projects across connected services.

Give your team more capacity

Reduce the preparation, checking and follow-up around recurring work.

Connect AI use to delivered work

Follow AI activity into projects, code and business results.
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Troubleshoot Flowstate Desktop

Find what you’re seeing, then follow the fix.

Let your computers reach Flowstate

If your firewall or web gateway only allows approved destinations:

  1. Allow outbound HTTPS on port 443 to proxy.flowstate.host. The apps send AI requests there.
  2. Allow outbound HTTPS on port 443 to platform.flowstate.inc, so people can sign in and see their spend limit.
  3. If your gateway inspects encrypted traffic, exclude proxy.flowstate.host.

Requests to AI services then arrive from Flowstate’s network, not your offices. If you limit a provider account to certain IP addresses, ask your Flowstate contact for the addresses to allow. Gateway rules that pick out AI services by address may need a review.

If Flowstate can’t be reached, the apps send requests direct, so people’s AI tools keep working.

Sign-in doesn’t finish

  • Mac. Finish signing in on platform.flowstate.inc in your browser. The browser then hands you back to the app. If it doesn’t, choose Open browser again in the app.
  • Windows. Check the code in your browser matches the code in the app. Approve the sign-in in the browser where you’re signed in to Flowstate, then choose Open Flowstate. The app also finishes on its own within a few seconds.
  • Check the computer can reach platform.flowstate.inc.

No sessions arrive in Flowstate

  1. Check all three setup steps show a tick. On Mac, nothing is sent until the certificate is trusted.
  2. Check the person isn’t paused. On Mac, open the menu bar panel and check it reads Connected. On Windows, look at the tray icon.
  3. Quit and reopen AI apps that were open before Flowstate started. They may still be using connections from before.
  4. Use an AI tool, wait a few minutes, then look for the person in Agent sessions.
  5. Check the tool is one the app covers. Requests the app doesn’t recognise as AI requests aren’t sent.
  6. For OpenRouter or xAI on Mac, check whether the menu bar panel offers Update certificate. Until it’s updated, those requests go direct.
  7. If routing is on, check the person is recognised. See How people are recognised.

Sessions show usage and cost by default. The conversation itself appears only if session transcripts are on for that service. See Session transcripts.

Claude Desktop isn’t tracked

Sign in to Claude Desktop with your claude.ai account as normal. Flowstate Desktop covers it that way. It doesn’t need Claude Desktop’s third-party inference or gateway setting. If Claude Desktop was open before Flowstate started, quit and reopen it once.

Certificate errors

  • Mac. Choose Trust certificate again and approve it. For Node tools, run echo $NODE_EXTRA_CA_CERTS in a new Terminal window. It should print the path to ca.pem. Restart Node tools after setup and after Update certificate.
  • Windows. Choose Trust certificate and answer Yes to the Security Warning. Restart terminals and editors afterwards.

Windows command-line tools can’t connect

A tool pointed at a stopped Flowstate service fails instead of falling back. Open the Flowstate tray app, or choose Pause routing, then restart the terminal.