---
title: Understand the Cost Impact of Function Invocations
description: Learn how to use Observability to understand function invocations and their cost impact.
url: "https://vercel.com/kb/guide/understand-cost-impact-of-function-invocations"
published: 2025-11-03
last_updated: 2025-11-11
authors: DX Team
install_vercel_plugin: npx plugins add vercel/vercel-plugin
---

**Problem**: Your consumption is higher than you anticipated, and this is reflected in your invoice.

You can use [Observability](/docs/observability) to help you understand which routes and functions are responsible for consumption. To do so:

1. From your [dashboard](/dashboard), select the project you want to investigate.
   
2. Navigate from your dashboard to the **Observability** tab.
   
3. Choose **Serverless Functions** (pre-selected by default) and select the appropriate timerange (e.g. last 6 hours).
   
4. Sort the routes by **Invocations**, or **Total Duration** to see the most frequently invoked or longest-running routes: {' '}
   
   ![sort-routes-light.png](https://images.ctfassets.net/hjgychtc108g/2W79mN3lk0CeTgq7qxB74N/b9ae0faeb408a0b8102489289e3a2d17/sort-routes-light.png)
   
   Media
   
5. Select a route to see the Function view, which displays the number of invocations and the latency distribution.
   
6. Advanced Metrics help you understand memory usage, cold starts and TTFB - which can have an effect on the overall consumption of your route.
   
7. External APIs can show you request durations to upstream APIs, which directly influence the execution duration of your function: {' '}
   
   ![upstream-api-light.png](https://images.ctfassets.net/hjgychtc108g/1ec7X6e4NLLr2HlPXiVGj3/c218be6ebb5a52169b909cc386d56d8a/upstream-api-light.png)
   
   Media
   

## More resources

- [Observability overview](/docs/observability)
  
- [Observability limits and pricing](/docs/observability/limits-and-pricing)

## Related Documentation

- [Observability](/docs/observability)
- [Vercel Functions](/docs/functions)

## More Observability guides

- [Trace and debug eve agent runs](/kb/guide/trace-and-debug-eve-agent-runs): Inspect eve traces in Vercel Agent Runs, control captured content, export OpenTelemetry spans, and test fixes with regression evals.
- [Capture AI SDK token usage, tool calls, and cost with evlog](/kb/guide/ai-sdk-and-evlog): Record AI SDK usage with evlog, add cost estimates and request context, and investigate expensive or failed requests.
- [How to effectively load test your application on Vercel](/kb/guide/how-to-effectively-load-test-your-vercel-application): Learn how to safely load test your Next.js app on Vercel. This guide covers realistic, policy-compliant testing of routes, caching, middleware, and databases to uncover performance issues without impacting Vercel’s infrastructure.

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