# AI Gateway Use Cases - GateLLM

> AI gateway use cases that turn capabilities into plans: cost reduction, high availability, multi-tenancy, compliance/audit, troubleshooting. Grounded in real pain points from Reddit, StackOverflow, and Zhihu — each tied to GateLLM capabilities with a link to the full how-to in the docs.

Canonical: https://www.gatellm.io/use-cases/

## AI Gateway Use Cases
Organized by "what you want to achieve" — strings gateway capabilities into actionable plans, each linking to the full step-by-step in the docs.
These use cases come from what developers and architects actually ask about on Reddit, StackOverflow, and Zhihu — cost, high availability, multi-tenancy, compliance/audit, and troubleshooting. Each ties community pain points to GateLLM capabilities and links to the full how-to and config reference in the docs.
### [Reduce LLM Cost](https://www.gatellm.io/use-cases/reduce-cost.md)
- **Pain**: Monthly invoice arrives, then you find out you burned $10k
- **Fix**: BYOK, no token markup + Composition + real-time cost attribution
- Admin · Intermediate

### [High Availability](https://www.gatellm.io/use-cases/high-availability.md)
- **Pain**: One provider outage takes the whole app down
- **Fix**: Multi-node failover + cross-provider fallback + shared state across instances
- Admin · Intermediate

### [Multi-Tenant Isolation](https://www.gatellm.io/use-cases/multi-tenant.md)
- **Pain**: One shared API key, no idea who spent what
- **Fix**: Key groups + Header ACL + per-tenant rate limit & billing
- Admin · Advanced

### [Compliance & Audit](https://www.gatellm.io/use-cases/compliance-audit.md)
- **Pain**: Data can't leave the country, PII must be redacted, audit logs required
- **Fix**: Self-hosted + request-path secret detection + egress-redacted logs + retention
- Admin · Advanced

### [Troubleshoot by Symptom](https://www.gatellm.io/use-cases/troubleshooting.md)
- **Pain**: Streaming broke / 429 / 502, no idea where it stuck
- **Fix**: z-request-id end-to-end tracing + normalized error codes
- Caller + Admin · Intermediate

### [Mixed Multi-Vendor Model Stack](https://www.gatellm.io/use-cases/mixed-model-stack.md)
- **Pain**: Claude Code on Opus all the way is too costly; dropping to Sonnet degrades planning
- **Fix**: Pin top models per agent role across vendors, zero client change
- Platform / AI Eng · Intermediate

### [AI in Office, Data Stays In-house](https://www.gatellm.io/use-cases/self-hosted-office-ai.md)
- **Pain**: Copilot routes contracts & financial models through the cloud; sensitive files can't leave the network
- **Fix**: Self-hosted Office add-in to your own gateway, zero SaaS dependency
- Enterprise Admin / IT · Advanced

### [Token Usage Visibility & Attribution](https://www.gatellm.io/use-cases/token-ops.md)
- **Pain**: One key shared by a dozen agents — you can only guess who is burning money
- **Fix**: Break usage and cost by person / key / key group × model
- Platform / AI Eng · Intermediate

### [Turn AI Spend into an Allocable Ledger](https://www.gatellm.io/use-cases/token-finops.md)
- **Pain**: Vendor list price is not your real cost, and it can't be charged back to teams
- **Fix**: Self-owned rate card + tag allocation + daily/monthly cost quotas
- Admin / FinOps · Advanced

### [MCP Tool Governance](https://www.gatellm.io/use-cases/mcp-tool-governance.md)
- **Pain**: Agents wired to a pile of MCP servers, no control over who can call which tool
- **Fix**: Unified /mcp endpoint + tool-level ACL + call audit
- Admin · Intermediate

### [Web Search for Every Model](https://www.gatellm.io/use-cases/web-search-grounding.md)
- **Pain**: Open models have no search; standing up RAG just for that is too heavy
- **Fix**: Gateway search injection + native search blocks + not billed
- Caller + Admin · Beginner

### [Multi-Key Rotation & Standby](https://www.gatellm.io/use-cases/multi-key-pooling.md)
- **Pain**: One key hits 429 rate limits and the business just waits
- **Fix**: Weighted multi-key + sticky binding + standby keys
- Admin · Beginner

### [Admission Control for Connected Clients](https://www.gatellm.io/use-cases/client-admission-control.md)
- **Pain**: Any key that leaks lets any client — a script, a rival SDK, a scraper — talk to your models
- **Fix**: Header ACL rules: allow/deny by request header across global / group / key scopes
- Admin · Advanced

### [Enforce Which Model Agents Actually Run](https://www.gatellm.io/use-cases/enforce-model-policy.md)
- **Pain**: A dev flips Claude Code to Opus to summarize a changelog, and no one can stop it
- **Fix**: Ingress allowlist + catch-all model mapping + plan-mode script split
- Platform / AI Eng · Advanced

### [No Model Choice on the Client](https://www.gatellm.io/use-cases/automatic-model-tiering.md)
- **Pain**: Everyone has a different model in their settings, so the same prompt comes out differently
- **Fix**: One model name on the client; the gateway tiers automatically by plan vs execution
- Decision Maker + Platform Eng · Advanced

### [One Protocol, Any Model](https://www.gatellm.io/use-cases/one-protocol-any-model.md)
- **Pain**: Every extra vendor means another SDK, auth scheme, streaming format and tool-call grammar
- **Fix**: Four chat-protocol families translate any-to-any; the client keeps the SDK it already has
- Dev + Platform Eng · Beginner

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- [Reduce LLM Cost](https://www.gatellm.io/use-cases/reduce-cost.md)
- [High Availability](https://www.gatellm.io/use-cases/high-availability.md)
- [Multi-Tenant Isolation](https://www.gatellm.io/use-cases/multi-tenant.md)
- [Compliance & Audit](https://www.gatellm.io/use-cases/compliance-audit.md)
- [Troubleshooting by Symptom](https://www.gatellm.io/use-cases/troubleshooting.md)
- [Mixed Multi-Vendor Model Stack](https://www.gatellm.io/use-cases/mixed-model-stack.md)
- [Self-Host AI Inside Office](https://www.gatellm.io/use-cases/self-hosted-office-ai.md)
- [Token Usage Visibility & Attribution](https://www.gatellm.io/use-cases/token-ops.md)
- [Token FinOps: AI Cost Allocation & Control](https://www.gatellm.io/use-cases/token-finops.md)
- [MCP Tool Governance](https://www.gatellm.io/use-cases/mcp-tool-governance.md)
- [Web Search for Every Model](https://www.gatellm.io/use-cases/web-search-grounding.md)
- [Multi-Key Rotation & Standby](https://www.gatellm.io/use-cases/multi-key-pooling.md)
- [Admission Control for Connected Clients](https://www.gatellm.io/use-cases/client-admission-control.md)
- [Enforce Which Model Agents Actually Run](https://www.gatellm.io/use-cases/enforce-model-policy.md)
- [No Model Choice on the Client](https://www.gatellm.io/use-cases/automatic-model-tiering.md)
- [One Protocol, Any Model](https://www.gatellm.io/use-cases/one-protocol-any-model.md)
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- [The $10k Invoice Problem: Five Ways to Cut LLM Spend Without Dumbing Down Your App](https://www.gatellm.io/blog/reduce-cost.md)
- [Your Vendor's List Price Is Not Your Cost: Applying Real FinOps to Token Spend](https://www.gatellm.io/blog/token-finops.md)
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