At 4 requests/user/day (totaling 600,000 queries/mo), running Document summarization on GLM-5 (Z.ai) costs $14,952.00 / month ($2.99 / user / mo).
Total expected API invoice for 5,000 Active Users generating 600,000 queries.
Direct inference cost per MAU to model your SaaS pricing tiers and gross margins.
Savings generated by exploiting 10% 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 | $14,952.00 | $2.99 | $179,424.00 | 200,000 |
| GPT-5.6 Sol | openai | $79,050.00 | $15.81 | $948,600.00 | 1,050,000 |
| GPT-5.6 Cyber | openai | $197,625.00 | $39.525 | $2,371,500.00 | 1,050,000 |
| GPT-5.5 Standard | openai | $79,050.00 | $15.81 | $948,600.00 | 512,000 |
| GPT-5.5 Pro | openai | $474,300.00 | $94.86 | $5,691,600.00 | 512,000 |
| o3-pro (Frontier Reasoning) | openai | $301,800.00 | $60.36 | $3,621,600.00 | 1,000,000 |
At 4 queries per user/day with GLM-5 (Z.ai), the estimated cost is $2.99 per monthly active user (MAU). Total monthly bill for 5,000 Active Users is $14,952.00.
Assuming a 10% cache hit rate on repeated system and context tokens, prompt caching saves $1,200.00 per month ($14,400.00/year) on GLM-5 (Z.ai).
With a direct COGS of $2.99 per user/month on GLM-5 (Z.ai), charging at least $14.952 per user/month ensures an 80%+ software gross margin.