You're already set up if you've signed up and swapped your base URL — everything past that point is verification and getting oriented in the dashboard. Here's the full path, in order, so nothing feels like guesswork on your first pass through.

TL;DR

1. Three steps: sign up, swap your base URL, send a test request. No SDK install, no code restructuring.
2. Your first request shows up in the dashboard within about a minute of going through.
3. Your first recommendation is typically ready within 24 hours, once there's enough traffic to spot a pattern.

The Three Setup Steps

01

Create your account

Email and password — no credit card required to start. You land in the setup flow immediately after signing up, where you'll get your unique proxy URL.

02

Swap your base URL

This is the entire integration. Wherever your code currently points at your provider's API directly, point it at Preto's proxy URL instead — everything else about your existing SDK usage stays the same.

# Before
client = OpenAI(api_key="sk-...")

# After — same SDK, same code, different base URL
client = OpenAI(
    api_key="sk-...",
    base_url="https://proxy.preto.ai/v1/YOUR-KEY"
)

Your actual provider API key stays exactly where it already lives — Preto forwards the request on, it doesn't replace your credentials.

03

Send a test request and verify

Trigger one real call through your app — a normal chat completion, a classification call, whatever your app already does. If your app responds normally, the integration is working; Preto is transparent to your application code, so there's no different response shape to handle.

What Happens in the First 24 Hours

~1 min
Your first request appears in the dashboard — model, tokens, cost, and latency logged automatically.
~30 min
Enough traffic accumulates to show meaningful cost-by-model and cost-by-feature breakdowns, if your traffic volume is steady.
~24 hrs
Your first recommendation is typically ready — a specific, ranked, dollar-estimated suggestion based on patterns in your actual traffic.

Already connected?

Here's what to look at first once your data starts flowing in.

Open Your Dashboard

You're already set up. Here's what to look at first.

The Recommended Path: Staging Before Production

Even though the integration is a single line, it's still worth deploying it to staging first, confirming normal app behavior, and then rolling to production — the same discipline you'd apply to any config change touching a critical path. Preto forwards every request exactly as sent and returns the provider's response unchanged, but verifying that in a lower-risk environment first costs a few minutes and removes any doubt before it matters.

Once you're confident it's working, the next step is learning to read what the dashboard is actually telling you — that's covered in the 5-minute dashboard guide. And once you've got a few days of real traffic flowing through, these are the five things worth doing in your first week to get the most out of it quickly.

Frequently Asked Questions

How long does it take to set up Preto?
About 10 minutes end to end — signup, swapping your base URL, and verifying with a test request typically takes under 5 minutes. Your first request appears in the dashboard within about a minute of going through.
Do I need to install an SDK to use Preto?
No. Preto works as a proxy — you change your provider's base URL to Preto's proxy endpoint and keep using your existing SDK exactly as before.
How long until I get my first cost-saving recommendation?
Preto's recommendation engine needs enough traffic to identify a meaningful pattern — for most teams with regular production traffic, the first recommendation is ready within 24 hours of connecting.
Will connecting Preto break my existing app?
It shouldn't, if you test in staging first. Preto forwards every request to your provider exactly as sent — the response your app receives is unchanged.

Your setup is done. Here's where to go next.

Open your dashboard to see your first cost data, or jump straight to the guide on what each number means.

Open Your Dashboard

Questions about setup? Reply to your welcome email — we read every one.

Gaurav Dagade
Gaurav Dagade

Founder of Preto.ai. 11 years engineering leadership. Previously Engineering Manager at Bynry. Building the cost intelligence layer for AI infrastructure.

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