At 8 requests/user/day (totaling 12,000 queries/mo), running Agentic workflow on Perplexity Sonar Deep Research costs $1,104.00 / month ($22.08 / 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Perplexity Sonar Deep Research (Current) | perplexity | $1,104.00 | $22.08 | $13,248.00 | 128,000 |
| GPT-5.6 Sol | openai | $1,536.00 | $30.72 | $18,432.00 | 1,050,000 |
| GPT-5.6 Cyber | openai | $3,840.00 | $76.80 | $46,080.00 | 1,050,000 |
| GPT-5.5 Standard | openai | $1,536.00 | $30.72 | $18,432.00 | 512,000 |
| GPT-5.5 Pro | openai | $9,216.00 | $184.32 | $110,592.00 | 512,000 |
| o3-pro (Frontier Reasoning) | openai | $5,424.00 | $108.48 | $65,088.00 | 1,000,000 |
At 8 queries per user/day with Perplexity Sonar Deep Research, the estimated cost is $22.08 per monthly active user (MAU). Total monthly bill for 50 Active Users is $1,104.00.
Assuming a 65% cache hit rate on repeated system and context tokens, prompt caching saves $0.00 per month ($0.00/year) on Perplexity Sonar Deep Research.
With a direct COGS of $22.08 per user/month on Perplexity Sonar Deep Research, charging at least $110.40 per user/month ensures an 80%+ software gross margin.