AI monthly cost calculator
Turn a single request token cost into a monthly figure by setting your expected request volume.
Token count uses the exact GPT (o200k) tokenizer. Counted in your browser, never uploaded.
| Model | Tokens | Per request | Monthly | Context |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Qwen3.8 Max | 0 est. | $0.003 | $3.00 | 0.1% |
| DeepSeek V4 Flashcheapest | 0 est. | $0.00014 | $0.14 | 0.1% |
| Claude Opus 5 | 0 est. | $0.013 | $12.50 | 0.1% |
Token counts vary by tokenizer and model; non-OpenAI counts are estimates. Cost is an estimate and provider pricing can change. See each model's source on the pricing page.
Scaling one request to a month
Monthly cost is simply per-request cost times requests per month, but the volume is easy to underestimate: background jobs, retries, and multi-step agents multiply real call counts. Use a realistic monthly volume, including retries, to avoid a projection that is comfortably below the actual invoice.
Budgeting for growth
If your user base is growing, budget for more than current volume. A 3x growth in users typically means 3x API calls and 3x token cost, assuming consistent usage patterns. Build your monthly budget at 1.5-2x your current volume during growth phases, and revisit it quarterly. Many teams get surprised by AI costs during viral growth because they budgeted at current traffic.
FAQ
Should I include retries and background jobs?
Yes. Retries, evaluations, and agent steps all bill as separate requests. Count them in your monthly volume for an accurate estimate.
How do I forecast next month's AI spend?
Take last month's total tokens from your provider dashboard, apply your expected growth rate, and price it against the current per-token rate. If you are changing models, re-price the same token volume at the new rate.
What is a reasonable monthly AI budget for a startup?
Early-stage apps typically spend $50-500/month on AI APIs. Mid-stage products with real users spend $500-5,000/month. At scale, costs vary enormously by use case — a consumer app with millions of messages can spend $50,000+/month. The key is knowing your cost per user or cost per transaction.
How can I set a hard monthly spend cap?
Most providers allow you to set a hard spend limit in your billing settings. Once the limit is reached, API calls return an error until the next billing cycle or you raise the cap. Set this to avoid surprise invoices, especially during development and testing.
Current model pricing
| Model | Provider | Input | Cached | Output | Context | Verified |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Qwen3.8 Max | Alibaba | $2 | $0.25 | $6 | 1 000k | 2026-08-03 |
| Claude Haiku 4.5 (latest) | Anthropic | $1 | $0.1 | $5 | 200k | 2025-10-15 |
| Claude Opus 4.8 | Anthropic | $5 | $0.5 | $25 | 1 000k | 2026-05-28 |
| Claude Sonnet 4.6 | Anthropic | $3 | $0.3 | $15 | 1 000k | 2026-03-13 |
| DeepSeek Chat | DeepSeek | $0.14 | $0.0028 | $0.28 | 1 000k | 2026-02-28 |
| Gemini 2.5 Flash | $0.3 | $0.03 | $2.5 | 1 048,576k | 2025-06-17 | |
| Gemini 3.5 Flash | $1.5 | $0.15 | $9 | 1 048,576k | 2026-05-19 | |
| Mistral Medium (latest) | Mistral | $1.5 | n/a | $7.5 | 262,144k | 2026-04-29 |
| Kimi K3 | Moonshot AI | $3 | $0.3 | $15 | 1 048,576k | 2026-07-16 |
| GPT-4.1 mini | OpenAI | $0.4 | $0.1 | $1.6 | 1 047,576k | 2025-04-14 |
| GPT-4o | OpenAI | $2.5 | $1.25 | $10 | 128k | 2024-08-06 |
| GPT-5.5 | OpenAI | $5 | $0.5 | $30 | 1 050k | 2026-04-23 |
| Grok 4.5 | xAI | $2 | $0.3 | $6 | 500k | 2026-07-08 |
| GLM-5.2 | Zhipu AI | $1.4 | $0.26 | $4.4 | 1 000k | 2026-06-13 |
Prices per 1M tokens (USD). Each model links to its official source. Seed values pending re-verification. See the methodology.