AI Agent Cost Estimator
A single chat request and a multi-step AI agent cost very differently. Estimate what an agent-based workflow actually costs to run at volume, including retry overhead.
Estimated cost
Retry overhead adds proportional extra steps on top of the base run cost. A rough estimate — actual agent cost varies with tool-call overhead and provider-specific pricing tiers.
Frequently asked questions
Why do multi-step agents cost so much more than a single chat request?
Each step is its own model call, and many agent frameworks re-send prior context (tool outputs, conversation history) with every step — so cost scales with steps taken, not just the size of the final answer, and can compound quickly on longer-running tasks.
What's a realistic retry/self-correction rate to assume?
It depends heavily on task complexity and how well the agent's tools and prompts are built — start with your own logs if you have them; 10-25% is a reasonable starting range for many production agent workflows before those are tuned.
Does prompt caching change this math?
Yes, potentially significantly, if the agent re-sends a lot of stable context (system instructions, tool definitions) across steps — see the Caching & Batch Savings Calculator to estimate that separately.