How Much Do LLM APIs Really Cost? I Ran the Numbers for 5 Common Workloads in 2026

"How much will we actually pay?" is the question every team asks before committing to an LLM API. Published price-per-token tables are accurate but hard to translate into real monthly bills. This piece runs the numbers for five common workloads — chat app, code assistant, support bot, document Q&A, and batch summarisation — and gives you rough monthly cost bands for OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and xAI in 2026. No fluff; the goal is to help developers and founders in the US, UK, Europe, India, and Australia budget realistically.

## The Five Workloads (and Assumptions)

**1. Consumer chat app (light use)**
~50,000 input + 20,000 output tokens per user per month. Assumes a small B2C product with a few thousand active users. Mix of short turns and occasional long threads.

**2. Code assistant / dev tool**
~200,000 input + 80,000 output tokens per developer per month. Assumes daily use for completions, explanations, and refactors. Heavy on code context.

**3. Customer support bot**
~500,000 input + 150,000 output tokens per month per agent. Assumes the bot handles a meaningful share of tier-1 support; multi-turn conversations and knowledge-base retrieval.

**4. Document Q&A / RAG**
~1M input + 200,000 output tokens per month. Assumes internal docs or help-center RAG; repeated retrieval and medium-length answers.

**5. Batch summarisation**
~2M input + 400,000 output tokens per month. Assumes nightly or weekly jobs over reports, emails, or logs. Output-heavy.

Exact numbers depend on model choice (e.g. GPT-4o vs GPT-4o mini, Claude 3.5 Sonnet vs Haiku). The ranges below use typical "mid-tier" models where most teams land.

## Workload 1: Consumer Chat App (Light)

**Rough scale:** 50K in / 20K out per user/month.
**OpenAI (GPT-4o):** ~$0.25–0.40 per user/month.
**Anthropic (Claude 3.5 Sonnet):** ~$0.20–0.35.
**Google (Gemini 1.5 Pro):** ~$0.15–0.30.
**xAI (Grok):** ~$0.01–0.02 (Grok is orders of magnitude cheaper per token).

At 5,000 users, you are in the $1,250–2,000/month range for OpenAI/Anthropic/Google, or well under $100 for xAI at similar usage. Switching to "mini" or "Haiku" tiers can cut these by 50–70%.

## Workload 2: Code Assistant

**Rough scale:** 200K in / 80K out per dev/month.
**OpenAI:** ~$1.50–2.50 per dev/month.
**Anthropic:** ~$1.20–2.00.
**Google:** ~$1.00–1.80.
**xAI:** ~$0.05–0.10.

For a team of 20 developers, that is roughly $30–50/month (OpenAI/Anthropic/Google) or a few dollars for xAI. Code-assistant workloads are often among the most predictable; many teams lock in a single provider and optimise later with caching and model tiers.

## Workload 3: Customer Support Bot

**Rough scale:** 500K in / 150K out per "agent"/month.
**OpenAI:** ~$4–7 per agent/month.
**Anthropic:** ~$3.50–6.
**Google:** ~$3–5.
**xAI:** ~$0.15–0.25.

At 10 equivalent agents, you are looking at $40–70/month for the big three, or about $1.50–2.50 for xAI. Support bots often need strong instruction-following and safety; Claude and GPT-4o are common choices even when cost is higher.

## Workload 4: Document Q&A / RAG

**Rough scale:** 1M in / 200K out/month.
**OpenAI:** ~$8–14/month.
**Anthropic:** ~$6–12.
**Google:** ~$5–10.
**xAI:** ~$0.30–0.50.

RAG workloads are input-heavy (retrieval context). Long-context models (Claude, Gemini) can reduce round-trips; xAI and smaller tiers keep cost low if quality is acceptable.

## Workload 5: Batch Summarisation

**Rough scale:** 2M in / 400K out/month.
**OpenAI:** ~$16–28/month.
**Anthropic:** ~$12–22.
**Google:** ~$10–18.
**xAI:** ~$0.60–1.00.

Batch jobs are where per-token price matters most. Many teams use the cheapest capable model (e.g. Haiku, Gemini Flash, or Grok) for summarisation and reserve premium models for user-facing features.

## How to Use These Numbers

Treat these as order-of-magnitude estimates. Your mix of models, caching, and prompt length will shift the numbers. The point is to get a feel for which workload dominates your bill and which provider is in the right ballpark for your region and quality bar.

For a quick side-by-side of 2026 token pricing across providers, use the free [LLM API Pricing Tracker](/tools/llm-api-pricing) on this site. For a deeper dive into when to choose which model, see [OpenAI vs Anthropic vs Google vs xAI API Pricing 2026](/blog/openai-vs-anthropic-vs-google-vs-xai-api-pricing-2026).