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Gut-loading is one of those livefood practices that sounds technical but is actually a simple idea: feeder insects are fed nutritious food for a period before they're offered to a reptile, so that whatever is inside the insect's gut at the point of feeding passes on some of that nutritional value too.
The basics are consistent across most common feeder insects. They need a container with adequate ventilation so air can move but nothing escapes, a stable temperature that avoids extremes of heat or cold, and enough space that they're not so crowded they start dying off before use. Egg boxes or cardboard inserts are commonly used in cricket and locust tubs to increase usable surface area and give the insects somewhere to sit that isn't directly on top of each other.
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However good a livefood delivery is when it arrives, what happens to it between then and feeding day makes a real difference to the condition it's in when it's finally offered. Storage is arguably the most overlooked part of the whole feeding routine, and it's worth getting right.
This is a general good-practice principle rather than a precise science with fixed timings or quantities that apply to every household. How long to gut-load, and how often, depends on the insects being kept, the conditions they're kept in, and the feeding schedule of the animals they'll go to. Rather than following a single fixed rule, it helps to build gut-loading into the same routine as storing and checking livefood day to day, so it becomes a habit rather than an extra step.
Juvenile animals are usually cheaper to feed on a per-item basis, since smaller feeder insects cost less than larger ones, but they're often fed more frequently to support rapid growth, which can offset some of that saving. As an animal matures and its feeding frequency drops, the per-feed cost may rise because larger livefood or bigger portions are typically needed, even though the overall frequency is lower. In practice, many keepers find total monthly spend evens out somewhere in the low tens of pounds for a single animal on a livefood diet, though this varies a good deal by species, size, and how many animals are being fed.