Guides → Playground & Guide → Agentic TCO + ROI Builder - Layer Drivers to a Risk-Weighted GO / NO-GO

Agentic TCO + ROI Builder - Layer Drivers to a Risk-Weighted GO / NO-GO

Meet Owen Bradley. Product lead building the cost case for an agent program. "I want to enter the real drivers for each cost layer and have them roll up into one risk-weighted verdict - not assemble a dozen numbers by hand."

🔥 I had a spreadsheet stitching together eight separate cost estimates. One input change meant re-deriving everything.

The story

The builder is the hands-on companion to the control tower. You enter the raw drivers per layer - tokens, eval cadence, review rate, integration scope - and live engines compute each layer behind the scenes.

Those layer outputs roll up into a single risk-weighted ROI and a GO / NO-GO verdict, so changing one driver re-flows the whole model instantly.

It is the difference between a brittle spreadsheet and a live model: change an assumption and the verdict updates, with every layer still defensible underneath.

Ready to run the numbers?

Open the full calculator. Pick a model, enter your tokens, see per-call, daily, monthly, and annual cost.

🚀 Open the full calculator →

Top 3 right now

Verified 13 hours ago

About this calculator: Agentic TCO + ROI Builder - Layer Drivers to a Risk-Weighted GO / NO-GO

Enter the raw drivers per cost layer and let the live layer engines roll them up into a risk-weighted GO / NO-GO verdict for an agentic program.

🎛 Inputs you control

Each input shapes the cost. Click an input on the calculator to set it. The explanations below match the live calculator field by field.

Gross benefit USD / month: Monthly value at full ramp: labor saved plus revenue.
How to choose: Cost per task saved x volume against a baseline measured before go-live.
Horizon (months): Period over which ROI and payback are evaluated.
How to choose: 36 months is the common board horizon.
Base cancellation risk pct: Baseline chance the program is cancelled before value lands.
How to choose: Gartner's ~40% is the agentic anchor; gates adjust it down.
Most popular

Everything above is the 80% case. The last 20% is where the money is.

The gaps we just listed are real, and they are the expensive ones: your actual prompts, your switching cost, your MLOps overhead. An AICost expert spends the hour on your AI and cloud costs, not a generic playbook. You leave with a written report: the way forward, in 30 days of concrete steps.

  • An hour with the people who built the engines
  • Report the same day
  • The fee credits toward any AICost plan
  • Two slots a week
Book a Solution Session: $299 → or $99 for small business →

Not sure yet? The $39 AICost Blueprint credits toward a Session, and the Session fee credits toward any plan. You never pay twice for the same ground. See all pricing →

Ready to run your own numbers?

You have seen the shape of it. Open the calculator with your model, your tokens, your volume.

🚀 Open the full calculator →

Methodology

Editorial gate
8-layer defense, see aicost.ai/ai-cost-economics
Last verified
7/20/2026, 8:00:00 PM

Author: Subu Vdaygiri, Founder & CEO of CloudIntelligence.ai. 17 years Fortune 100 (Ingram Micro, Siemens). Wharton CTO program · Kellogg CPO program · 10× AWS+Azure certified.

📖 Data sources & methodology 158 text models · 9 embeddings · 37 vision · 55 audio · 8 vector DBs across 10 vendor pages · last verified 2026-07-21

Methodology

  • All prices are USD per 1 million tokens, current as of 2026-07-21.
  • Vendor-published values have no mark. Inferred/extrapolated values are marked with * and listed below.
  • Batch API discounts are 50% off standard rates across providers that offer Batch mode.
  • Prompt caching discounts vary by provider (typically 80-90% off cached input tokens).
  • Regional data-residency surcharges (Anthropic 1.1x, OpenAI 1.1x, Google regional tiers) are NOT included in base rates.
  • Long-context pricing tiers apply when input exceeds model threshold.
  • Embedding prices are input-only (no output tokens generated).

Primary sources

Last-verified date is the most recent successful daily snapshot (aicost_pricing_snapshots) or, when no snapshot exists yet, the latest successful crawler run (aicost_crawler_runs). 10 of 10 vendors are currently verified. Aggregator services (TokenCost, AI Pricing Guru, etc.) are not listed.

Anthropic
2026-07-21
https://www.anthropic.com/pricing
Daily snapshot since Sep 2023 · 624 days captured
Anthropic Docs
2026-07-21
https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/about-claude/pricing
Daily snapshot since Sep 2023 · 624 days captured
OpenAI
2026-07-21
https://openai.com/api/pricing/
Daily snapshot since Sep 2023 · 625 days captured
Google AI
2026-07-21
https://ai.google.dev/gemini-api/docs/pricing
Daily snapshot since Dec 2023 · 600 days captured
Google Vertex
2026-07-21
https://cloud.google.com/vertex-ai/generative-ai/pricing
Daily snapshot since Dec 2023 · 600 days captured
DeepSeek
2026-07-21
https://api-docs.deepseek.com/quick_start/pricing
Daily snapshot since May 2024 · 539 days captured
xAI
2026-07-21
https://x.ai/api
Daily snapshot since Nov 2024 · 457 days captured
Mistral
2026-07-21
https://mistral.ai/pricing
Daily snapshot since Dec 2023 · 598 days captured
Cohere
2026-07-21
https://cohere.com/pricing
Daily snapshot since Sep 2023 · 624 days captured

Inferred values (marked with * in calculator tables)

Derived from industry conventions, not directly published by the vendor. Typical conventions: cached input = 10% of base (90% off), Batch API = 50% of base (50% off).

Vendor / Model Field Why it’s inferred
Anthropic — Claude Sonnet 4.6 cachedInput Derived at 10% of input rate — Anthropic publishes 90% cache-hit discount on this tier.
Anthropic — Claude Sonnet 4.5 cachedInput Derived at 10% of input rate; same 90% cache-hit convention as Sonnet 4.6.
Anthropic — Claude Sonnet 4.5 batchInput Derived at 50% of standard input — Anthropic documents uniform 50% Batch discount.
Anthropic — Claude Sonnet 4.5 batchOutput Derived at 50% of standard output — Anthropic documents uniform 50% Batch discount.
Anthropic — Claude Haiku 4.5 cachedInput Derived at 10% of input rate — Anthropic 90% cache-hit discount convention.
OpenAI — GPT-5.4 Mini cachedInput Derived at 10% of input — OpenAI documents automatic 90% discount on cache hits across GPT-5.x tier.
OpenAI — GPT-5.4 Nano cachedInput Derived at 10% of input — OpenAI 90% cache-hit convention.
OpenAI — GPT-5.4 Nano batchInput Derived at 50% of input — OpenAI Batch API uniform 50% discount.
OpenAI — GPT-5.4 Nano batchOutput Derived at 50% of output — OpenAI Batch API uniform 50% discount.
OpenAI — GPT-5.4 Pro cachedInput Derived at 10% of input — OpenAI 90% cache-hit convention.
OpenAI — GPT-5.4 Pro batchInput Derived at 50% of input — OpenAI Batch API uniform 50% discount.
OpenAI — GPT-5.4 Pro batchOutput Derived at 50% of output — OpenAI Batch API uniform 50% discount.
OpenAI — GPT-5.2 cachedInput Derived at 10% of input; no residency uplift.
OpenAI — GPT-5.2 batchInput Derived at 50% of input.
OpenAI — GPT-5.2 batchOutput Derived at 50% of output.
OpenAI — GPT-5 cachedInput Derived at 10% of input.
OpenAI — GPT-5 batchInput Derived at 50% of input.
OpenAI — GPT-5 batchOutput Derived at 50% of output.
OpenAI — GPT-5.5 Pro cachedInput Derived at 10% of input — OpenAI does not publish a cached rate for *-pro models; using the family convention.
OpenAI — GPT-5.5 Pro batchInput Derived at 50% of input.
OpenAI — GPT-5.5 Pro batchOutput Derived at 50% of output.
OpenAI — GPT-5.2 Pro cachedInput Derived at 10% of input — pro-tier convention.
OpenAI — GPT-5.2 Pro batchInput Derived at 50% of input.
OpenAI — GPT-5.2 Pro batchOutput Derived at 50% of output.
OpenAI — GPT-5.1 batchInput Derived at 50% of input.
OpenAI — GPT-5.1 batchOutput Derived at 50% of output.
OpenAI — GPT-5 Pro batchInput Derived at 50% of input.
OpenAI — GPT-5 Pro batchOutput Derived at 50% of output.
OpenAI — GPT-5 Nano cachedInput Derived at 10% of input.
OpenAI — GPT-5 Nano batchInput Derived at 50% of input.
OpenAI — GPT-5 Nano batchOutput Derived at 50% of output.
Google — Gemini 3 Flash cachedInput Derived at 10% of input — Google caching discount convention ~90%.
Google — Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite cachedInput Derived at 10% of input — Google caching convention.
Google — Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite batchInput Derived at 50% of input — Google Batch API uniform 50% discount.
Google — Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite batchOutput Derived at 50% of output — Google Batch API uniform 50% discount.
Google — Gemini 2.5 Pro cachedInput Derived at 10% of input.
Google — Gemini 2.5 Flash cachedInput Derived at 10% of input.
Google — Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite cachedInput Derived at 10% of input — Google caching convention.
Google — Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite batchInput Derived at 50% of input — Google Batch API uniform 50% discount.
Google — Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite batchOutput Derived at 50% of output — Google Batch API uniform 50% discount.
Google — Gemini 2.0 Flash cachedInput Derived at 25% of input per Google 2.0 family caching rates.
Google — Gemini 2.0 Flash batchInput Derived at 50% of input — Google Batch API uniform 50% discount.
Google — Gemini 2.0 Flash batchOutput Derived at 50% of output — Google Batch API uniform 50% discount.
Google — Gemini 2.0 Flash-Lite cachedInput Derived at 10% of input — Google caching convention.
Google — Gemini 2.0 Flash-Lite batchInput Derived at 50% of input — Google Batch API uniform 50% discount.
Google — Gemini 2.0 Flash-Lite batchOutput Derived at 50% of output — Google Batch API uniform 50% discount.
xAI — Grok 4 (legacy) cachedInput Extrapolated at 25% of base.

Pricing is cross-verified against the LiteLLM community registry when available. Daily snapshots are kept in aicost_pricing_snapshots; every change is logged to aicost_price_changelog with old & new values for full audit trail. Read the full methodology →