How AI pricing works

Most modern model pricing is based on usage. Providers usually charge separately for the text you send in and the text the model returns, with some providers also offering a cheaper cached-input tier.

This project’s main job is to make those tradeoffs visible in the calculator and then reinforce them with narrow explainer pages instead of generic filler content.

For example, a workflow with small prompts but huge answers can end up being dominated by output pricing, while a retrieval-heavy app may care more about prompt compression and cached context. That is why the calculator breaks out each piece separately.

This also matters for monetization strategy. Informational pages like this can carry ads without damaging the core tool, while the calculator itself should stay fast and uncluttered.