AI Inference Cost vs Prompt Quality 2027 Calculator
Estimate the monthly cost of running AI inference when you route some queries to a premium model and the rest to a cheaper one. Enter your own daily volume, average tokens per query and the price per million tokens for each model. No prices are built in: the two price boxes hold placeholder values, so replace them with the current rates from your provider's pricing page.
How the Cost Is Calculated
Monthly tokens = daily queries × tokens per query × 30. Premium cost = monthly tokens × share routed to the premium model × its price per million tokens. The cheap model takes the remaining share at its own price. Example: 50,000 queries a day at 3,000 tokens is 4.5 billion tokens a month; with 10% routed to a $15 model and 90% to a $0.40 model the total is $6,750 + $1,620 = $8,370.
Routing Between Models
Many teams send simple requests to a cheaper model and reserve the expensive one for harder requests. The saving depends entirely on your own traffic mix and on prices, which is why both are inputs here. Whether the cheaper model is good enough is something to measure on your own test set before changing the routing share.
What Is Not Included
The estimate does not separate input and output token prices, cached-token discounts, batch discounts, rate limits, or the engineering cost of building a router. Providers change prices from time to time, so re-check them before budgeting.
Source and Disclaimer
This page contains no vendor prices or benchmarks; every figure in the result comes from your inputs. Check current rates on your provider's own pricing page.
Method: arithmetic on your own inputs; no vendor pricing is built in. Last updated: October 2026.