About

What is AI Cost Estimator?

AI Cost Estimator is a free online tool that helps developers and teams estimate the raw API token costs of building software projects using AI coding agents. Whether you're using Cursor, Claude Code, Devin, or any other AI-assisted development tool, our calculator gives you a realistic cost projection before you start building.

Why We Built This

AI coding agents are transforming software development. But one thing that catches many developers off guard is the cost. A simple “build me a full-stack app” request can cost anywhere from $2 to $2,000+ in API tokens depending on the model, tooling, and quality requirements.

We built this tool to bring transparency to AI coding costs. By modeling how context windows grow per turn and how different tooling types consume tokens differently, we give developers a data-driven starting point for budgeting their AI-assisted projects.

How It Works

Our 4-step questionnaire captures the key variables that affect AI coding costs:

1. Project Scope — From micro apps (~500 lines) to enterprise systems (~50,000+ lines).
2. Architecture Complexity — Features like authentication, databases, payments, and real-time functionality add integration overhead.
3. Agent Tooling — Five distinct tiers from chat & copy-paste, AI inside your code editor, and hands-on terminal agents through set-goal-and-walk-away modes to fully autonomous cloud sandboxes — each consuming tokens at very different rates.
4. Quality Level — Draft-quality zero-shot code vs. production-ready code with tests and error handling.

We then model the per-turn token accumulation — accounting for context window growth as the codebase expands — and calculate costs across 110+ models from 23 providers: Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, DeepSeek, Mistral, xAI, Poolside, Nvidia, Sakana, Meta, Cursor, Moonshot, Alibaba, Zhipu, Xiaomi, MiniMax, StepFun, Tencent, Nex AGI, IBM, Perceptron, inclusionAI, and Meituan.

Pricing Data

Official provider pricing pages are the primary source for standard API rates. We use the OpenRouter API for model discovery and fallback pricing only when an official public API price is unavailable. We update pricing data regularly as providers adjust their rates. All prices are in USD per million tokens.

We currently track pricing from 23 providers: Anthropic (Claude Fable 5, Mythos 5, Opus, Sonnet, Haiku), OpenAI (GPT-5.6 Sol/Terra/Luna, GPT-5.5, GPT-5.4, GPT-4.1, o3, o4-mini), Google (Gemini 3.1 Pro, 3.5 Flash, 2.5 Pro), DeepSeek (V4 Pro, V4 Flash, R1), xAI (Grok 4, Grok Build), Poolside (Laguna XS 2.1, Laguna M.1), Nvidia (Nemotron 3 Ultra), Sakana (Fugu Ultra), Mistral (Medium 3.5, Devstral), Meta (Muse Spark 1.1, Llama 4 Maverick, Scout), Alibaba (Qwen3.7 Max, Qwen3 Coder), Cursor (Composer 2.5), Moonshot (Kimi K3, K2.7-Code, K2.6), Zhipu (GLM 5.2, 5.1), Xiaomi (MiMo V2.5), MiniMax (M3, M1), StepFun (Step 3.7 Flash), Tencent (Hy3), Nex AGI (N2-Mini, N2-Pro), IBM (Granite 4.1 8B), Perceptron (Mk1), inclusionAI (Ring-2.6-1T), and Meituan (LongCat-2.0). This gives you cost comparisons across 110+ distinct model variants in a single view.

Who Is This For?

• Indie developers budgeting AI-assisted side projects and wondering “will this cost $5 or $500?”
• Engineering managers estimating AI tooling budgets for their teams before committing to annual subscriptions or API credits.
• Startups comparing AI coding tools (Cursor vs Claude Code vs Copilot vs Devin) to find the most cost-effective option for their workflow.
• Students and learners who want to experiment with AI coding agents without accidentally running up large API bills.

Contact

Have feedback, found an error in our pricing data, or want to suggest a feature? We'd love to hear from you.

Email: tangyiming510@gmail.com