LLM API cost calculator
Tell us how much you send and receive. We will estimate your monthly cost across every model, ranked from cheapest to most expensive.
Mistral Large 4 (Le Chonk) estimates use current Standard sale rates, verified October 7, 2026. The promotion end date is not published. See sale and original prices.
| Model | Provider | Per request | Monthly cost |
|---|
List prices per 1M tokens; catalog updated 2026-10-07. DeepSeek peak/off-peak and published long-context rates are applied. Estimates exclude image/audio tokens, cache-write fees, batch/Flex/Fast adjustments and free tiers.
How to estimate your LLM API cost
Every token-based API bills you twice: once for the input (everything you send — the prompt, system message and any context or documents) and once for the output (what the model writes back). Output is usually 2–5× more expensive than input, so the single biggest lever on your bill is how much the model generates.
The formula is simple:
monthly cost = requests × ((input_tokens × input_price) + (output_tokens × output_price)) / 1,000,000
- Cap output length. Setting a sensible
max_tokensstops runaway generations from blowing the budget. - Use prompt caching. If you resend the same system prompt or document every call, caching can cut that input cost by 75–90%. Toggle it above to see the effect.
- Right-size the model. A cheap model that succeeds is better than an expensive one — but a cheap model that fails and forces a retry costs more. Measure success rate, not just sticker price.
- Batch when you can. Most providers offer a Batch API at roughly half price for non-urgent jobs.
Want the per-model numbers without the math? See the full LLM API price comparison or the cheapest LLM APIs guide.