the IT Hustle
ToolsField ManualAbout

AI Cost Planner

Budget AI the way you budgeted servers. Enter your real workload — requests per day, tokens per request — and get a monthly bill across 12 major models, plus the breakeven point where a flat-rate subscription beats the API.

Rule of thumb: one page of English text is roughly 500 tokens; a long code file is 3,000–15,000.

ModelIn / 1MOut / 1MMonthly
GPT-4.1 NanoOpenAICHEAPEST$0.10$0.40$0.198
DeepSeek V3 (chat)DeepSeek$0.27$1.10$0.542
Mistral Large 3Mistral$0.50$1.50$0.810
Gemini 3 FlashGoogle$0.50$3.00$1.35
GPT-5.4 MiniOpenAI$0.75$4.50$2.03
Claude Haiku 4.5Anthropic$1.00$5.00$2.34
GPT-4.1OpenAI$2.00$8.00$3.96
Gemini 3.1 ProGoogleFRONTIER$2.00$12.00$5.40
GPT-5.4OpenAI$2.50$15.00$6.75
Claude Sonnet 4.6Anthropic$3.00$15.00$7.02
Claude Opus 4.7AnthropicFRONTIER$5.00$25.00$11.70
GPT-5.5OpenAIFRONTIER$5.00$30.00$13.50
Subscription vs API breakeven

At this workload, calling Gemini 3.1 Pro via API costs about $5.40/month — cheaper than a $20/month subscription seat. Direct API access wins.

Prices are list prices per 1M tokens, last verified 2026-05-11. Batch APIs are typically ~50% cheaper and cached input up to 90% cheaper. Always confirm against the provider's current pricing page.

How to Budget Your AI Costs

Estimate your monthly AI spend across 12 major models with The IT Hustle's free AI Cost Planner.

  1. 1
    Pick a workload presetStart from a preset that matches how you use AI — daily chat assistant, document analysis, coding assistant, or batch processing — then adjust the numbers.
  2. 2
    Enter your real usageSet requests per day, average input tokens per request, and average output tokens. One page of English text is roughly 500 tokens.
  3. 3
    Compare the monthly billThe table shows your workload priced across every major model, sorted cheapest first, with frontier models flagged.
  4. 4
    Check the breakevenThe planner tells you whether your workload is cheaper on direct API pricing or on a flat-rate subscription like ChatGPT Plus or Claude Pro.

Frequently Asked Questions

The pricing table shows list prices per million tokens with a visible last-verified date, and we update it when providers change pricing. Always confirm against the provider's own pricing page before committing to a budget.

Most providers offer roughly 50% off for batch (non-interactive) API calls and up to 90% off for cached input tokens. The planner shows standard interactive pricing — treat it as your ceiling, not your floor.

It depends entirely on volume. Light users (a few dozen chats a day) are usually cheaper on API pricing; heavy daily users often do better on a flat-rate subscription. That breakeven is exactly what this tool calculates from your numbers.

Use our Token Counter: paste a typical prompt or document and it estimates the token count. As a rule of thumb, a page of prose is ~500 tokens and a long code file is 3,000–15,000.

Related Tools

Token CounterLocal AI CheckerAI Prompt Library