Multi-Model Cost Calculator – Compare API costs and maintenance overhead

Help AI app developers estimate the cost and maintenance overhead of different model combinations and gateway setups

Problem

Building AI apps with multiple models means dealing with different auth, parameters, and error handling, leading to high maintenance costs. A recent post promoting a unified API gateway highlights the fragmentation problem, but there's no tool to quantify the cost of different approaches, making decisions hard.

Solution

An online calculator where developers input or select multiple AI models, expected usage, routing rules, etc., to automatically estimate monthly API costs, maintenance hours, and failure risks. It supports comparing different gateway options and generates recommended configurations.

Users

Developers building AI apps, agents, or automation tools, especially teams managing multiple model providers.

MVP

Preload pricing and parameters for mainstream models (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, etc.); allow users to input monthly token usage; calculate total cost and potential savings; output comparison tables and simple recommendations; no login required.

Revenue

Free tool to attract traffic, monetize via affiliate commissions from AI gateways or model providers; or offer a premium version with custom models and report exports for $5-10/month.

Why now

Multi-model integration is becoming the norm, but cost transparency is low, and developers need quick evaluation tools. An indie developer can build this quickly using public pricing data without a complex backend.