AI Agent Cost Calculator
Real monthly cost and payback period for production AI agents. Pick your use case, set your scale, and get a verified TCO in under a minute.
What kind of agent are you building?
Pick the closest match. We autofill sane defaults across every cost driver.
How big is your workload?
What does this replace?
Defaults assume a Tier-1 support agent workload.
Total cost
Same workload, all models
Click to switch. Sorted cheapest first. Bar width is monthly cost.
Your selected model ranks #10 of 13 by monthly cost at this workload.
What this calculator assumes
Every number is sourced. Disagree? Open Advanced mode and change it.
LLM token pricing
Pulled from each vendor's pricing page. Last verified 2026-04-26. Per-million-token rates. Each model row in the picker shows its own verification date and source link.
Source ↗Prompt caching
Anthropic 5-min cache: 90% off cached input. Gemini context cache: 75% off. Modeled as a slider so you can match your real cache hit rate (40 to 70% is typical for RAG).
Source ↗Voice agent rates
Bundled platforms (Vapi, Retell) market $0.05-0.07/min as orchestration only. Realistic all-in for Deepgram + Claude + 11Labs is $0.15-0.25/min. ElevenLabs Conversational AI is genuinely bundled at $0.08-0.10/min.
Source ↗Hosting cost scaling
AWS Lambda free tier covers ~5K daily calls. Beyond that, $0.20 per 1K daily calls is realistic for typical agent payloads. Container hosting has a higher floor but lower per-call cost.
Source ↗Vector database cost
pgvector is free if you already run Postgres. Qdrant Cloud baseline is ~$150/mo for 5M vectors at 768d. Pinecone Serverless starts $50/mo. OpenSearch Serverless production minimum is 2 OCU = ~$350/mo.
Source ↗Build cost ranges
Reactive: $350-$3,500. Goal-based: $6K-$9.5K. Utility: $7.8K-$11.2K. Learning/multi-agent: $8.6K-$12.9K. Build approach multiplies these by 0.4× (no-code), 1× (in-house), 1.4× (agency).
Maintenance budget
Defaults to 25% of build cost annually. Industry-typical 20-30% range from DevOps Research and ThoughtWorks tech radar. Covers prompt regression fixes, dependency upgrades, observability tuning, and re-fine-tuning.
ROI assumptions
Automation efficiency from McKinsey 2024 reports. Tier-1 support absorbs 50 to 70% of volume. Sales qualification absorbs 40 to 60%. Specialist work 30 to 50%.
Real production cost ranges (2026)
From 109 production agents shipped + public deployment data.
| Agent type | Build cost | Monthly run | Payback |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tier-1 support agent | $8K to $12K | $400 to $1,200 | 4 to 9 months |
| Internal RAG (Slack/Notion Q&A) | $5K to $9K | $250 to $700 | 6 to 12 months |
| Voice agent (5K calls/mo) | $10K to $16K | $1,200 to $2,500 | 5 to 10 months |
| Sales qualification agent | $9K to $14K | $500 to $1,400 | 7 to 14 months |
| Multi-agent workflow system | $15K to $30K+ | $1,500 to $5,000 | 9 to 18 months |
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Drop one line of code into any blog or docs page. Free, with attribution.
<iframe src="https://www.jahanzaib.ai/tools/ai-agent-cost-calculator"
width="100%" height="1200" frameborder="0"
title="AI Agent Cost Calculator by Jahanzaib Ahmed"></iframe>FAQ
Why are there two modes?
Most users want a quick estimate. Simple mode gives you that in 4 inputs. Advanced mode exposes every cost driver behind the scenes — model token math, infra components, build complexity, voice per-minute pricing, automation efficiency. Both modes share the same calculation engine.
Is the pricing fact-checked?
Yes. Each model entry carries its own verified date and source link. Last full pass: 2026-04-26. We refresh monthly. If you spot a stale price, mention it and we will update.
How is this different from Softcery, GroovyWeb, or other AI cost calculators?
Softcery only models LLM token costs. GroovyWeb only models ROI. This calculator combines both, plus infrastructure, build cost, voice, and maintenance. It is the only one that produces a real Total Cost of Ownership number, with sources cited for every assumption.
What is the cheapest LLM for AI agents?
Claude Haiku 4.5 at $1/$5 per million tokens or Gemini 2.5 Flash at $0.30/$2.50 are the cheapest serious models. DeepSeek V3.2 at $0.28/$0.42 is the cheapest open-weight option.
How do I share my results?
Click "Copy shareable URL" in the results panel. The URL encodes every input. Open it in a new tab and the entire calculator restores. Send it in Slack, paste it in a Notion doc, embed it in a slide.
What does Simple mode actually skip?
Simple mode auto-fills these from the use case you pick: input/output token counts, prompt cache hit rate, hosting choice, vector DB choice, monitoring choice, complexity tier, build approach, integration count, voice platform, voice volume, and automation efficiency. You can override any of them in Advanced mode.
Does this include AWS Bedrock?
Yes. Bedrock-hosted Claude models are included. Same per-token pricing as Direct + an optional 10 to 15% infra overhead toggle for data transfer, S3, Lambda, and CloudWatch. Llama 3.3 70B on Bedrock is also included.
How much can prompt caching save?
Anthropic prompt caching cuts cached input tokens by 90 percent. Gemini context cache cuts them by 75 percent. For RAG or agent workloads where the same system prompt and context are reused, real-world savings range 30 to 70 percent of total LLM cost.
Is this calculator free?
Yes. No signup, no email gate. Runs entirely in your browser. Built by Jahanzaib Ahmed because vendor calculators are designed to lock you in.
Need help shipping these in production?
I have shipped 109 production AI systems. If the math here scares you or excites you, let's talk.