At 20 requests/user/day (totaling 3,000,000 queries/mo), running Content generation on DeepSeek V4 Flash costs $5,501.28 / month ($1.10 / user / mo).
Total expected API invoice for 5,000 Active Users generating 3,000,000 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 (5,000 Active Users) | Cost / User / Mo | Annual Spend | Context Limit |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DeepSeek V4 Flash (Current) | deepseek | $5,501.28 | $1.10 | $66,015.36 | 1,000,000 |
| GPT-5.6 Luna | openai | $4,670.40 | $0.9341 | $56,044.80 | 1,050,000 |
| GPT-5.4 mini | openai | $17,514.00 | $3.503 | $210,168.00 | 256,000 |
| GPT-5.4 nano | openai | $4,850.40 | $0.9701 | $58,204.80 | 128,000 |
| GPT-4o mini | openai | $2,466.00 | $0.4932 | $29,592.00 | 128,000 |
| Claude Haiku 4.5 | anthropic | $19,752.00 | $3.95 | $237,024.00 | 1,000,000 |
At 20 queries per user/day with DeepSeek V4 Flash, the estimated cost is $1.10 per monthly active user (MAU). Total monthly bill for 5,000 Active Users is $5,501.28.
Assuming a 30% cache hit rate on repeated system and context tokens, prompt caching saves $306.72 per month ($3,680.64/year) on DeepSeek V4 Flash.
With a direct COGS of $1.10 per user/month on DeepSeek V4 Flash, charging at least $5.501 per user/month ensures an 80%+ software gross margin.