How do you protect an LLM API from abuse / cost spikes?

medium

Answer

$(1) Rate limiting per user / IP / API key (token bucket).$
$(2) Per-tenant token quotas (daily / monthly).$
$(3) Max input length + max output tokens caps per request.$
$(4) Cost caps: circuit-break when a tenant's spend exceeds threshold.$
$(5) Content moderation on input to reject obvious abuse.$
$(6) Anomaly detection on request patterns (e.g., sudden 100\times QPS from one key).$
$(7) Signed / short-lived tokens for browser clients.$
$Standard SaaS + a few LLM-specific twists (token accounting).$

Check yourself — multiple choice

No protection needed
Rate limits + per-tenant token quotas + input/output caps + cost circuit breakers + moderation + anomaly detection + signed tokens
Only firewall
Impossible

LLM abuse protection: rate limits + token quotas + caps + cost breakers + moderation.

#production#safety

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