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AICost Business Solutions

Procurement and supply chain

3 AI automations this team runs today, each with the process, the AICost engine chain that prices and governs it, and the evidence behind it.

Cost engine Governance engine Each step priced and controlled. Click any engine to open its calculator or playground.
Purchase request intake and approval routing agentAutonomous supplier negotiation for tail spendSupplier risk and compliance review (security, privacy, tariffs)

Purchase request intake and approval routing agent

Owner: Procurement operations

See a chain run live Build this chain for our stack
Scale: One 8,000-person tech company processed 1,410 requests in its first month on Zip (VentureBeat, June 2025)

How the work runs

  1. Employee describes what they want to buy
  2. Agent checks for existing contracts and preferred suppliers
  3. Agent checks the request against vendor documents and flags mismatches
  4. Agent routes to security, legal, finance and budget approvers
  5. PO raised in the ERP or P2P system

AICost engine chain

3 cost engines 2 governance engines

Each step priced and controlled. Click any engine to open its calculator or playground.

Where cost leaks

  • Multiple review agents run on every request regardless of size
  • Vendor documents (SOC 2 reports, DPAs) re-read on each request
  • Platform pricing by spend or request volume

Where risk sits

  • Approval steps skipped or auto-approved
  • Unvetted vendors getting company data
  • Spend split to stay under approval limits

Runs on

  • Zip
  • Coupa (Navi agents)
  • SAP Ariba
  • Oracle
  • NetSuite
  • Slack

Evidence

venturebeat.com ↗coupa.com ↗

Autonomous supplier negotiation for tail spend

Owner: Category managers / sourcing

See a chain run live Build this chain for our stack
Scale: Walmart had about 80% of suppliers not actively negotiated before using Pactum, per HBR as cited by SCMR

How the work runs

  1. Procurement sets targets and limits (price, payment terms, discounts)
  2. AI agent contacts suppliers, often for deals under $50k
  3. Agent negotiates within the limits
  4. Deals outside the limits go to a buyer
  5. Agreed terms recorded in the contract and ERP

AICost engine chain

2 cost engines 3 governance engines

Each step priced and controlled. Click any engine to open its calculator or playground.

Where cost leaks

  • Long negotiation threads with many rounds per supplier
  • Agent spend larger than savings on very small deals
  • Success-fee or per-negotiation pricing

Where risk sits

  • Agent agreeing to terms outside policy
  • Damaging key supplier relationships
  • Antitrust or price-information sharing issues

Runs on

  • Pactum
  • SAP Ariba
  • Coupa
  • Fairmarkit
  • Oracle

Evidence

scmr.com ↗procurementmag.com ↗

Supplier risk and compliance review (security, privacy, tariffs)

Owner: Third-party risk / supply chain risk team

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How the work runs

  1. New or renewing supplier triggers a review
  2. AI reads security questionnaires, SOC 2 reports and DPAs
  3. AI flags privacy, security and tariff exposure
  4. AI monitors news and events for supplier disruptions
  5. Risk team decides and records mitigations

AICost engine chain

4 cost engines 4 governance engines

Each step priced and controlled. Click any engine to open its calculator or playground.

Where cost leaks

  • Continuous monitoring of every supplier, not only critical ones
  • Large compliance documents re-processed at each renewal
  • Overlapping risk-intel subscriptions

Where risk sits

  • Missed critical risk treated as cleared
  • Confidential supplier documents shared with outside models
  • Unsupported claims in audit files

Runs on

  • Zip
  • Resilinc
  • Coupa
  • SAP Ariba
  • OneTrust
  • ServiceNow VRM

Evidence

venturebeat.com ↗stackai.com ↗

Reference chains are a starting point. Your volumes, models and vendors change the numbers; the engines recompute them from live prices.

Your process is not on the list, or runs differently? These chains are a starting point. We assemble the right engines for your workflow, your models and your vendors, and you run it over MCP or in the calculators.

Industry solutions → Build my chain
📖 Data sources & methodology 172 text models · 9 embeddings · 44 vision · 62 audio · 8 vector DBs across 10 vendor pages · last verified 2026-10-15

Methodology

  • All prices are USD per 1 million tokens, current as of 2026-10-15.
  • 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
2026-10-14
https://www.anthropic.com/pricing
Daily snapshot since Sep 2023 · 700 days captured
Anthropic Docs
2026-10-14
https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/about-claude/pricing
Daily snapshot since Sep 2023 · 700 days captured
OpenAI
2026-10-14
https://openai.com/api/pricing/
Daily snapshot since Sep 2023 · 701 days captured
Google AI
2026-10-14
https://ai.google.dev/gemini-api/docs/pricing
Daily snapshot since Dec 2023 · 676 days captured
Google Vertex
2026-10-14
https://cloud.google.com/vertex-ai/generative-ai/pricing
Daily snapshot since Dec 2023 · 676 days captured
DeepSeek
2026-10-14
https://api-docs.deepseek.com/quick_start/pricing
Daily snapshot since May 2024 · 615 days captured
xAI
2026-10-14
https://x.ai/api
Daily snapshot since Nov 2024 · 533 days captured
Mistral
2026-10-14
https://mistral.ai/pricing
Daily snapshot since Dec 2023 · 674 days captured
Cohere
2026-10-14
https://cohere.com/pricing
Daily snapshot since Sep 2023 · 700 days captured
Voyage AI
2026-10-15
https://docs.voyageai.com/docs/pricing

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.
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 →