Free Tool
AI Cost Calculator: Project Your Monthly API Budget
Wondering how much your AI API will cost per month? Enter your usage to project your monthly and annual AI API cost with growth built in, compare OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and other providers side by side across up to 4 models, and budget for AI API costs before you launch.
Compare pricing by provider
Not sure how many tokens your prompts use? Paste your text into the Token Calculator for exact counts first.
Formula: monthly cost = monthly requests × ((avg input tokens × input price) + (avg output tokens × output price)) / 1,000,000
gemini-3.1-pro-preview
$2/M in · $12/M out
How AI API pricing works
Every major LLM provider bills per token, separately for input tokens (what you send in your prompt and any context) and output tokens (what the model generates back). Prices are quoted per million tokens, and output tokens are almost always priced higher than input tokens because generating each token is more compute-intensive than reading one. Your cost for a single request is ((input tokens times input price) plus (output tokens times output price)) divided by 1,000,000, and your monthly cost is that per-request cost multiplied by how many requests you make.
Pricing swings enormously by model: a lightweight model can cost a fraction of a cent per million tokens, while a top-tier reasoning model can run tens of dollars per million tokens. Picking the right model for a given task, and knowing your real average token counts, matters more for your bill than almost anything else. See detailed per-model pricing on the OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google cost calculator pages.
Who is this for?
See if your role, business, or workflow matches how people actually use this tool.
Indie SaaS founder building a GPT-wrapper product
Before you charge users a monthly price, you run an openai api cost calculator to make sure the per-user token spend still leaves a profitable margin.
Seed-stage AI startup founder building the investor financial model
You need an ai cost forecast for startups that turns monthly request volume and expected growth into a defensible 12-month burn number for the pitch deck.
Product manager scoping a new AI feature at an existing SaaS company
Before you pitch finance, you want an ai feature cost estimate that shows what adding GPT-powered search will add to the infra budget at current and projected usage.
Engineering lead or CTO choosing between OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google models
You run a compare llm api pricing exercise side by side to see which provider hits the best cost-to-quality ratio at your real traffic volume.
FP&A analyst or CFO at an AI-native company
You need an ai budget forecast tool to turn engineering's usage projections into a defensible annual AI infrastructure line item for the board.
Freelance developer building custom chatbots for clients
You use a chatbot api cost calculator to quote an accurate monthly fee so a fixed-price client contract does not quietly lose money on token usage.
AI or RAG engineer building a customer-support chatbot
You want a llm cost per conversation calculator to decide whether GPT-4o or a cheaper mini model is affordable at expected ticket volume.
No-code builder wiring GPT into Bubble, Zapier, or Make
With no engineering background, you search for a gpt api cost calculator for beginners to get a plain-English monthly dollar estimate before connecting an API key.
Marketing agency running AI content generation at scale
Producing thousands of blog posts and social captions a month, you need an ai content generation cost estimate to project the OpenAI bill before committing to a client volume.
Platform or DevOps engineer running an internal LLM gateway
Managing a shared LiteLLM or Portkey proxy across several product teams, you need llm gateway cost planning to allocate a realistic budget per team before rollout.
Solopreneur running an AI automation agency for local businesses
Pricing monthly retainers for client workflows, you use an ai automation agency pricing calculator to make sure the API costs behind each automation stay well under the fee you charge.
VC or angel investor doing diligence on an AI startup's burn rate
Reviewing a founder's projections, you want to sanity-check ai startup api cost assumptions against real provider pricing before wiring a check.
Enterprise IT or procurement buyer evaluating AI vendors
Before an RFP, you run an enterprise llm pricing comparison to see total cost of ownership across providers at your company's expected call volume.
Data science or ML team lead evaluating a model migration
Deciding whether to move production traffic off GPT-4o, you want a gpt-4o vs claude cost comparison to quantify the exact dollar savings at current volume.
Bootcamp student or self-taught developer shipping a first AI side project
New to LLM APIs, you search how much does chatgpt api cost per request to translate token pricing into real dollars before launching to friends.
Frequently asked questions
How much will my AI API cost per month?
Your monthly cost depends on request volume, average tokens per request, and which model you use. Enter your expected usage above to get an instant monthly and annual projection across major providers.
How do I estimate AI API costs before launching a product?
Start with a conservative estimate of daily requests and average tokens per request, then add a 30 to 50 percent buffer for retries and unexpected usage. This calculator lets you model conservative, moderate, and aggressive growth scenarios side by side.
Which AI provider is cheapest for my usage?
Cost varies widely by model and task, and the cheapest model is not always the best fit. Use the provider comparison to see OpenAI, Claude, Gemini, and other providers priced against your exact usage numbers.
What is the difference between a token calculator and an AI cost calculator?
A token calculator counts tokens in a single piece of text and prices one request. An AI cost calculator like this one projects your full monthly and annual spend based on request volume and usage growth over time.
How does usage growth affect my AI budget?
Even a modest month over month increase in requests compounds quickly at scale. This calculator lets you set a growth rate so you can see projected costs three, six, and twelve months out, not just today.
Does prompt caching or batch processing change these cost estimates?
Yes, prompt caching and batch APIs can cut costs significantly for repeated or non urgent requests. Factor in your expected cache hit rate or batch usage when entering your average cost per request for a more accurate projection.
More free tools
Need exact token counts for your own prompt instead? Try the AI Token Calculator or browse the full Free AI Tools hub.