Published 2026-05-21 · 林启明
Direct answer
Estimate model spend from input tokens, output tokens, request volume, and price per million tokens, before ops surprises you. Production notes for product teams: what to check on quality, cost, routing, and rollout before sending traffic.
The four variables that drive AI API cost
Before it becomes an ops problem, AI API cost is multiplication. Take average input tokens, average output tokens, request count, and the model's price per 1M tokens. Do it once for a cheap model and once for a stronger one so product owners see the gap with real numbers, not vibes.
| Variable | Example |
|---|---|
| Input tokens | 1,000,000 |
| Output tokens | 1,000,000 |
| Requests | 1 |
| Doubao estimate | $0.33 |
Use the same formula in code
The pricing estimate API uses the same math as the public calculator. You can wire internal planning tools without copying price tables by hand.
curl
curl https://nextmodel.app/api/pricing/estimate \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{"model":"qwen/qwen3.7-max","input_tokens":1000000,"output_tokens":1000000,"requests":1}'Related guides
- Cheap LLM API options — Lower-priced models to plug into your estimate.
- AI API cost calculator — Turn token prices into a monthly estimate.
- LLM API providers compared — Unit prices across providers.