AI API Pricing Calculator (2026): Compare Model Costs by Workload

•Nicola Lazzari
AI API pricing calculator across providers and models

AI API Pricing Calculator

Monthly Cost Calculator

Estimate spend across major AI model APIs with one workload baseline. Live config last synced on 2026-03-27; validate against provider pricing pages before shipping billing logic.

How to use these sliders

Input ratio controls how many tokens are prompt/context tokens vs output tokens. Cached input ratio controls how much of those input tokens can use the lower cached-input price.

Example: with 1,000 tokens per message, 75% input means 750 input tokens and 250 output tokens. If cached input is 45%, then about 338 input tokens use cached pricing.

Estimated monthly spend

$486.56

Based on GPT-5.4 indicative token rates.

Input cost

$111.56

Output cost

$375.00

Cached input

33.75M

Model cost ranking

ProviderModelBest forMonthly cost
AWS BedrockAmazon Nova MicroGeneral-purpose workloads$6.13
Google GeminiGemini 2.0 Flash-Lite (batch)General-purpose workloads$6.56
Google GeminiGemini 2.5 Flash-Lite (batch)General-purpose workloads$7.40
Google GeminiGemini 2.0 Flash (batch)General-purpose workloads$7.91
MistralMinistral 3 3BGeneral-purpose workloads$10.00
AWS BedrockAmazon Nova LiteGeneral-purpose workloads$10.50
Google GeminiGemini 2.0 Flash-Lite (standard)General-purpose workloads$13.13
Google GeminiGemini 2.5 Flash-Lite (standard)General-purpose workloads$14.46
Vertex AIGemini 2.5 Flash Lite (standard)General-purpose workloads$14.46
Google GeminiGemini 2.0 Flash (standard)General-purpose workloads$14.97
MistralMistral Small 3.2General-purpose workloads$15.00
MistralMistral Small CreativeGeneral-purpose workloads$15.00
MistralMinistral 3 14BGeneral-purpose workloads$20.00
Vertex AIGemini 2.5 Flash Lite (priority)General-purpose workloads$26.10
CohereCommand RGeneral-purpose workloads$26.25
xAIGrok 4.1 Fast ReasoningGeneral-purpose workloads$27.50
xAIGrok 4.1 Fast Non-ReasoningGeneral-purpose workloads$27.50
Google GeminiGemini 2.5 Flash (standard)General-purpose workloads$38.45
OpenAIGPT-5.4 nanoGeneral-purpose workloads$40.18
DeepSeekdeepseek-chatGeneral-purpose workloads$41.00
Vertex AIGemini 2.5 Flash (flex batch)General-purpose workloads$42.50
Azure OpenAIGPT-5-mini GlobalGeneral-purpose workloads$61.33
PerplexitySonarGeneral-purpose workloads$68.36
MistralMistral Large 3General-purpose workloads$75.00
Vertex AIGemini 2.5 Flash (standard)General-purpose workloads$75.89
MistralMistral Medium 3.1General-purpose workloads$80.00
DeepSeekdeepseek-reasonerGeneral-purpose workloads$82.16
AnthropicClaude Haiku 3.5General-purpose workloads$135.70
Vertex AIGemini 2.5 Flash (priority)General-purpose workloads$136.46
AWS BedrockAmazon Nova ProGeneral-purpose workloads$140.00
OpenAIGPT-5.4 miniGeneral-purpose workloads$145.97
Google GeminiGemini 2.5 Pro (batch)General-purpose workloads$155.00
AnthropicClaude Haiku 4.5General-purpose workloads$169.63
Vertex AIGemini 2.5 Pro (flex batch)General-purpose workloads$171.88
AWS BedrockAmazon Nova Pro (Latency Optimized)General-purpose workloads$175.00
MistralMagistral Medium 1.2General-purpose workloads$275.00
MistralMistral Large 2.1General-purpose workloads$300.00
xAIGrok 4.20 ReasoningGeneral-purpose workloads$300.00
xAIGrok 4.20 Non-ReasoningGeneral-purpose workloads$300.00
Google GeminiGemini 2.5 Pro (standard)General-purpose workloads$305.78
Azure OpenAIGPT-5 Codex GlobalGeneral-purpose workloads$305.95
Vertex AIGemini 2.5 Pro (standard)General-purpose workloads$305.95
PerplexitySonar Reasoning ProGeneral-purpose workloads$350.00
PerplexitySonar Deep ResearchGeneral-purpose workloads$350.00
CohereCommand AGeneral-purpose workloads$437.50
CohereCommand R+General-purpose workloads$437.50
OpenAIGPT-5.4General-purpose workloads$486.56
AnthropicClaude Sonnet 4.6General-purpose workloads$508.88
AnthropicClaude Sonnet 4.5General-purpose workloads$508.88
AnthropicClaude Sonnet 4General-purpose workloads$508.88
AnthropicClaude Sonnet 3.7General-purpose workloads$508.88
Vertex AIGemini 2.5 Pro (priority)General-purpose workloads$550.58
PerplexitySonar ProGeneral-purpose workloads$600.00
AnthropicClaude Opus 4.6General-purpose workloads$848.13
AnthropicClaude Opus 4.5General-purpose workloads$848.13
AnthropicClaude Opus 4.1General-purpose workloads$2,544.38
AnthropicClaude Opus 4General-purpose workloads$2,544.38

Supported AI providers

OpenAI logoOpenAIAnthropic logoAnthropicGoogle Gemini logoGoogle GeminiMistral logoMistralCohere logoCoherexAI logoxAIPerplexity logoPerplexityDeepSeek logoDeepSeekAWS Bedrock logoAWS BedrockAzure OpenAI logoAzure OpenAIVertex AI logoVertex AIMeta / Llama API(roadmap)

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What this calculator does

This calculator helps you estimate monthly AI API spend from a single workload baseline: messages per month, average tokens per message, input/output split, and cache ratio.

It is designed to compare providers quickly before you lock in model routing logic.

Data source and pricing model

The calculator reads its live model list from ai-provider-pricing-calculator-data-all-models.json so pricing is centralized in one source of truth.

Each model also includes a short Best for note to speed up model selection beyond pure token price.

How to use it

  1. Pick a model from the selector.
  2. Set your monthly messages and average tokens per message.
  3. Adjust input ratio and cached input ratio.
  4. Review estimated monthly cost and compare all models in the table.

The result is directional and should be validated against each provider billing page before production rollout.

Need help choosing the right AI model mix?

I can help you design model routing, caching strategy, and cost controls so your AI product scales without billing surprises.

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Cite this article

  • Title: AI API Pricing Calculator (2026): Compare Model Costs by Workload
  • Author: Nicola Lazzari
  • Published: March 27, 2026
  • Updated: March 2026
  • URL: https://nicolalazzari.ai/articles/ai-api-pricing-calculator-2026
  • Website: nicolalazzari.ai
  • Suggested citation: Nicola Lazzari. AI API Pricing Calculator (2026): Compare Model Costs by Workload. nicolalazzari.ai, updated March 2026.

Sources used

Primary sources

AI-Readable Summary

  • Interactive calculator for monthly AI API spend using one workload baseline.
  • Compares multiple providers and models, including cache-aware pricing behavior.
  • Model entries include a short best-fit explanation to support routing decisions.

Key takeaway: Interactive calculator for monthly AI API spend using one workload baseline.

Updated

March 2026

Topic

AI API Pricing Calculator (2026): Compare Model Costs by Workload

Audience

Developers, founders, product teams

Updated for March 2026 pricing and implementation context.

This article may be referenced in research, documentation, or AI datasets. Please cite the original source when possible.

Frequently Asked Questions

Yes. It includes active priced models from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Mistral, Cohere, xAI, Perplexity, DeepSeek, AWS Bedrock, Azure OpenAI, and Vertex AI based on the JSON source file.
Yes. If a model exposes cached-input pricing, the calculator applies your selected cache ratio. If not, it falls back to normal input pricing for those tokens.
Use it as a planning baseline. Final invoices vary with provider-specific details such as tool calls, storage, tiering, region, taxes, and model updates.

Related reading

Compare OpenAI, Claude, and Gemini API pricing in 2026. Official token costs, real workload examples, embeddings, multimodal, and cost optimisation for developers.

Read next: AI API Pricing Comparison (2026): OpenAI vs Claude vs Gemini Costs →

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