At 8 requests/user/day (totaling 120,000 queries/mo), running Agentic workflow on Perplexity Sonar Deep Research costs $11,040.00 / month ($22.08 / user / mo).
Total expected API invoice for 500 Active Users generating 120,000 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 (500 Active Users) | Cost / User / Mo | Annual Spend | Context Limit |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Perplexity Sonar Deep Research (Current) | perplexity | $11,040.00 | $22.08 | $132,480.00 | 128,000 |
| GPT-5.6 Sol | openai | $15,360.00 | $30.72 | $184,320.00 | 1,050,000 |
| GPT-5.6 Cyber | openai | $38,400.00 | $76.80 | $460,800.00 | 1,050,000 |
| GPT-5.5 Standard | openai | $15,360.00 | $30.72 | $184,320.00 | 512,000 |
| GPT-5.5 Pro | openai | $92,160.00 | $184.32 | $1,105,920.00 | 512,000 |
| o3-pro (Frontier Reasoning) | openai | $54,240.00 | $108.48 | $650,880.00 | 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 500 Active Users is $11,040.00.
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.