At 40 requests/user/day (totaling 6,000,000 queries/mo), running AI coding assistant on Perplexity Sonar Pro costs $396,000.00 / month ($79.20 / 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Perplexity Sonar Pro (Current) | perplexity | $396,000.00 | $79.20 | $4,752,000.00 | 200,000 |
| GPT-5.6 Terra | openai | $210,240.00 | $42.048 | $2,522,880.00 | 1,050,000 |
| GPT-5.4 Workhorse | openai | $262,800.00 | $52.56 | $3,153,600.00 | 256,000 |
| o3-mini | openai | $108,240.00 | $21.648 | $1,298,880.00 | 200,000 |
| o4-mini | openai | $96,360.00 | $19.272 | $1,156,320.00 | 256,000 |
| o1-mini | openai | $108,240.00 | $21.648 | $1,298,880.00 | 128,000 |
At 40 queries per user/day with Perplexity Sonar Pro, the estimated cost is $79.20 per monthly active user (MAU). Total monthly bill for 5,000 Active Users is $396,000.00.
Assuming a 60% cache hit rate on repeated system and context tokens, prompt caching saves $0.00 per month ($0.00/year) on Perplexity Sonar Pro.
With a direct COGS of $79.20 per user/month on Perplexity Sonar Pro, charging at least $396.00 per user/month ensures an 80%+ software gross margin.