TokenPad
Cost

AI Cost per User Calculator

What each user costs you, including the heavy tail that breaks margins.

Settings
Cost per UserExact
0Token change
Token change0no change
Input tokens0what you pasted
Output tokens0what you would send
Token cost of this result
Output tokens0
As input$0.00
× 100K requests$0.00

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Result

Averages hide the users that hurt

In most products a small minority generates a large share of requests. Pricing against the mean works until those users arrive, and then the margin collapses on exactly the cohort that is hardest to remove.

The heavy-user share is modelled separately here rather than folded into an average, because that is where subscription AI products actually bleed.

Reading the margin

Inference is not your only cost. Support, hosting, payment processing and salaries come out of the same price, so an inference margin below about seventy percent is usually thin once everything else is counted.

If the margin is negative, the fix is structural: fewer tokens per request, cheaper models for simple work, or usage limits. Raising the price rarely survives contact with the market.

Frequently asked questions

How do I limit heavy users without annoying everyone?
Soft limits with graceful degradation — route heavy users to a cheaper model after a threshold rather than blocking them. Most never notice, and the ones who do are the ones worth talking to about a higher tier.
Should I charge per usage instead?
It aligns cost with revenue perfectly and makes the product harder to sell, because buyers dislike unpredictable bills. Hybrid pricing — a subscription with a generous included allowance — is the common compromise.

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