At 20 requests/user/day (totaling 300,000 queries/mo), running Content generation on o4-mini costs $1,788.60 / month ($3.577 / user / mo).
Total expected API invoice for 500 Active Users generating 300,000 queries.
Direct inference cost per MAU to model your SaaS pricing tiers and gross margins.
Savings generated by exploiting 30% cache hits on prompt context.
| Model | Provider | Monthly Spend (500 Active Users) | Cost / User / Mo | Annual Spend | Context Limit |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| o4-mini (Current) | openai | $1,788.60 | $3.577 | $21,463.20 | 256,000 |
| GPT-5.6 Terra | openai | $4,670.40 | $9.341 | $56,044.80 | 1,050,000 |
| GPT-5.4 Workhorse | openai | $5,838.00 | $11.676 | $70,056.00 | 256,000 |
| o3-mini | openai | $1,808.40 | $3.617 | $21,700.80 | 200,000 |
| o1-mini | openai | $1,808.40 | $3.617 | $21,700.80 | 128,000 |
| Claude Sonnet 5 | anthropic | $3,950.40 | $7.901 | $47,404.80 | 1,000,000 |
At 20 queries per user/day with o4-mini, the estimated cost is $3.577 per monthly active user (MAU). Total monthly bill for 500 Active Users is $1,788.60.
Assuming a 30% cache hit rate on repeated system and context tokens, prompt caching saves $59.40 per month ($712.80/year) on o4-mini.
With a direct COGS of $3.577 per user/month on o4-mini, charging at least $17.886 per user/month ensures an 80%+ software gross margin.