AI Cost Calculator
Enter your usage and instantly compare monthly costs across 23 AI models. Find the cheapest option for your workload.
Cost Calculator
Cheapest
$17.00/mo
Gemini 2.0 Flash
Best Value
$28.00/mo
Llama 4 Maverick (quality >= 80)
Most Expensive
$3.0K/mo
Claude Opus 4
Save 30-60% with smart model routing
Swfte Connect automatically routes each request to the optimal model based on complexity, reducing costs without sacrificing quality.
All Models — Estimated Monthly Cost
How AI API Pricing Works
AI model providers charge based on tokens — the basic unit of text processing. One token is roughly 4 characters or ¾ of a word. Most providers charge separately for input tokens (your prompt) and output tokens (the model's response), with output tokens typically costing 2-5x more than input tokens.
Typical Usage Patterns
- Chatbot (customer support): ~500 input tokens, ~300 output tokens per message, 50K-500K messages/month
- Code generation: ~1,000 input tokens, ~500 output tokens per request, 10K-100K requests/month
- Document analysis: ~2,000 input tokens, ~200 output tokens per document, 5K-50K documents/month
- Content generation: ~300 input tokens, ~1,000 output tokens per piece, 1K-20K pieces/month
Cost Optimization Strategies
The most impactful strategy is intelligent model routing. Rather than sending every request to a premium model, analyze the complexity of each request and route simple ones to cheaper, faster models. Swfte Connect does this automatically, typically reducing API costs by 30-60%.
Other strategies include: using cached input pricing (available from Google and DeepSeek), optimizing prompts to reduce token usage, batching API calls, and self-hosting open-source models for predictable, high-volume workloads.
Comparing Providers
See our full pricing index for a comprehensive comparison of all providers, including historical pricing trends. Or check the model leaderboard to understand the quality vs. cost tradeoffs.