Microsoft Agent Framework is built for production multi-agent systems, which is exactly why its LLM bill can grow faster than expected. If you are running workflows with retries, handoffs, tools, and checkpoints, the easiest savings do not come from prompting harder — they come from adding a gateway layer under the framework. I built Lynkr, so obvious founder disclosure: this article uses Lynkr as the gateway example. I’ll keep it practical and focus on where the cost actually shows up in Micros