ai-inference-pricing
AI Inference Cost & Usage Pricing
Check that an AI product's price still covers what it costs to run, for a typical account and for the heavy one, before the price goes on the page.
When to use
When an AI product or feature is being priced or repriced, when gross margin is falling as usage grows, when a free tier or "unlimited" plan is on the table, or when the team is deciding how much usage to include and what to charge beyond it.
Before you start
- Read the brand/product context first. Pull the product, plans and prices from
.agents/product-marketing.md(or.agents/aaj-brand.md). If none exists, ask the user for the plan structure. - Gather inputs from the founder's own data. Plan price and whether it is per seat or per account; users per account and the share active in a month; each task type with tasks per active user per month and input/output tokens per task (from product logs, or a direct cost per task); the model prices they pay, per million input and output tokens, with the date they checked them; the routing share across models; included tasks and the overage price; the free tier (users, how active, how much they use, any cap, and the number of paid accounts carrying it); hosting per account, support and payment fees as a share of revenue.
- Ask for their target margin. The verdict is measured against the founder's own target, not a benchmark. If they have none, ask what margin the business plan or the board assumes, and use that.
- Never supply model prices. Do not fill in a provider's price from memory. Ask the user to look it up on the provider's own pricing page and give the date. Provider prices change.
Method
Price an AI product from the cost of one task upward. Inference cost per task is tokens times the price per token, blended across the models the task is routed to. Multiply by tasks per active user and active users per account to get inference per account, add the other variable costs and the free tier each paid account carries, and compare with what the account pays. Then stress it: the average account is rarely the problem. The heavy account is. A plan is only healthy if it meets the founder's target at normal usage and still makes money when usage spikes.