AI Workflow Cost Estimator

Most agencies hide the ongoing cost of AI. We don't. Pick a workflow, set the volume, see what it would actually cost to run per month — including LLM calls, third-party APIs, vector storage, and our Care fee.

Built for honest budgeting. Every estimate runs in your browser — we never see your numbers unless you send them to us.

Start with a template, then tune from there. Or pick "Blank" and describe your own.

Anthropic prompt cache reduces repeated input cost by ~90%. Higher cache hit rate = lower bill.

Engineering complexity

Affects build estimate and Care tier recommendation.

Calls per request (set to 0 if not used). Multiplied by volume to get monthly cost.

VIN decoder

Vehicle data (year, make, model, specs) $0.0500 per call

SMS (Twilio)

Inbound or outbound SMS message $0.0080 per call

Voice telephony (Twilio)

Inbound or outbound voice call $0.0220 per minute

Transcription (AssemblyAI / Whisper)

Audio → text transcription $0.0100 per minute

Web scraping (Apify / Browse)

Fetch + render a page $0.0200 per call

Geocoding (Google Maps)

Address → lat/lng $0.0050 per call

Email parsing (Postmark inbound)

Receive + parse inbound email $0.0100 per call

Image generation (DALL-E / SDXL)

Standard quality image $0.0400 per call

LLM API costs

Calculated as (volume × avg input tokens × $/M input) + (volume × avg output tokens × $/M output). Anthropic models include a prompt-cache slider — cached input is roughly 90% cheaper than uncached.

Third-party API costs

Per-request multipliers for things like VIN decoders, SMS, voice, and transcription. RAG workflows include a fixed monthly cost for vector database storage (Pinecone serverless minimum is ~$70/mo).

Care tier

Recommended automatically based on workflow complexity, volume, memory, and whether voice is involved. Care covers Stratus's monitoring, prompt tuning, model upgrades, and small fixes — distinct from API spend (which is always pass-through).

Safety buffer

The high end of the monthly invoice adds a 30% buffer on API spend. Most workflows run below the high end; this is the ceiling we'd quote in a real proposal so you aren't surprised.

What this isn't

A binding quote. It's a directional tool. Your actual quote depends on scope, integrations, and exact usage patterns — which is what we figure out in the discovery call. The estimator gets you 80% of the way there in five minutes.

Bring your estimate to a discovery call. We'll pressure-test the assumptions, scope the build, and send you a firm proposal within two business days.