At 8 requests/user/day (totaling 12,000 queries/mo), running Agentic workflow on DeepSeek R1 (Reasoner) costs $175.50 / month ($3.51 / user / mo).
Total expected API invoice for 50 Active Users generating 12,000 queries.
Direct inference cost per MAU to model your SaaS pricing tiers and gross margins.
Savings generated by exploiting 65% cache hits on prompt context.
| Model | Provider | Monthly Spend (50 Active Users) | Cost / User / Mo | Annual Spend | Context Limit |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DeepSeek R1 (Reasoner) (Current) | deepseek | $175.50 | $3.51 | $2,106.00 | 64,000 |
| GPT-5.6 Terra | openai | $614.40 | $12.288 | $7,372.80 | 1,050,000 |
| GPT-5.4 Workhorse | openai | $768.00 | $15.36 | $9,216.00 | 256,000 |
| o3-mini | openai | $435.60 | $8.712 | $5,227.20 | 200,000 |
| o4-mini | openai | $349.80 | $6.996 | $4,197.60 | 256,000 |
| o1-mini | openai | $435.60 | $8.712 | $5,227.20 | 128,000 |
At 8 queries per user/day with DeepSeek R1 (Reasoner), the estimated cost is $3.51 per monthly active user (MAU). Total monthly bill for 50 Active Users is $175.50.
Assuming a 65% cache hit rate on repeated system and context tokens, prompt caching saves $127.92 per month ($1,535.04/year) on DeepSeek R1 (Reasoner).
With a direct COGS of $3.51 per user/month on DeepSeek R1 (Reasoner), charging at least $17.55 per user/month ensures an 80%+ software gross margin.