At 200 requests/user/day (totaling 3,000,000 queries/mo), running Data extraction & tagging on Perplexity Sonar Deep Research costs $18,000.00 / month ($36.00 / user / mo).
Total expected API invoice for 500 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 20% 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 | $18,000.00 | $36.00 | $216,000.00 | 128,000 |
| GPT-5.6 Sol | openai | $47,100.00 | $94.20 | $565,200.00 | 1,050,000 |
| GPT-5.6 Cyber | openai | $117,750.00 | $235.50 | $1,413,000.00 | 1,050,000 |
| GPT-5.5 Standard | openai | $47,100.00 | $94.20 | $565,200.00 | 512,000 |
| GPT-5.5 Pro | openai | $282,600.00 | $565.20 | $3,391,200.00 | 512,000 |
| o3-pro (Frontier Reasoning) | openai | $158,400.00 | $316.80 | $1,900,800.00 | 1,000,000 |
At 200 queries per user/day with Perplexity Sonar Deep Research, the estimated cost is $36.00 per monthly active user (MAU). Total monthly bill for 500 Active Users is $18,000.00.
Assuming a 20% 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 $36.00 per user/month on Perplexity Sonar Deep Research, charging at least $180.00 per user/month ensures an 80%+ software gross margin.