At 40 requests/user/day (totaling 6,000,000 queries/mo), running AI coding assistant on GLM-5 (Z.ai) costs $75,840.00 / month ($15.168 / user / mo).
Total expected API invoice for 5,000 Active Users generating 6,000,000 queries.
Direct inference cost per MAU to model your SaaS pricing tiers and gross margins.
Savings generated by exploiting 60% cache hits on prompt context.
| Model | Provider | Monthly Spend (5,000 Active Users) | Cost / User / Mo | Annual Spend | Context Limit |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GLM-5 (Z.ai) (Current) | zai | $75,840.00 | $15.168 | $910,080.00 | 200,000 |
| GPT-5.6 Sol | openai | $525,600.00 | $105.12 | $6,307,200.00 | 1,050,000 |
| GPT-5.6 Cyber | openai | $1,314,000.00 | $262.80 | $15,768,000.00 | 1,050,000 |
| GPT-5.5 Standard | openai | $525,600.00 | $105.12 | $6,307,200.00 | 512,000 |
| GPT-5.5 Pro | openai | $3,153,600.00 | $630.72 | $37,843,200.00 | 512,000 |
| o3-pro (Frontier Reasoning) | openai | $1,622,400.00 | $324.48 | $19,468,800.00 | 1,000,000 |
At 40 queries per user/day with GLM-5 (Z.ai), the estimated cost is $15.168 per monthly active user (MAU). Total monthly bill for 5,000 Active Users is $75,840.00.
Assuming a 60% cache hit rate on repeated system and context tokens, prompt caching saves $34,560.00 per month ($414,720.00/year) on GLM-5 (Z.ai).
With a direct COGS of $15.168 per user/month on GLM-5 (Z.ai), charging at least $75.84 per user/month ensures an 80%+ software gross margin.