AI agent running cost calculator

Work out what an AI agent really costs to run around the clock. Enter how often it runs, how much context each turn carries, and your model's prices to see monthly token spend, hosting, and a spend cap worth setting.

How your agent runs

Runs per day

Scheduled tasks plus the times you talk to it.Turns per run

One turn is one model call in the agent loop.Input tokens per turn

The whole context re-sent each turn, not just the new message.Output tokens per turn

What you pay

Input price

$/M tokens

Take this from your provider's pricing page; rates change often.Output price

$/M tokens

Hosting per month

$/mo

Your VPS, your managed plan, or 0 if it runs on a machine you already pay for.

Total / month

$89

$50 tokens plus $39 hosting

Token spend / month

$50

Input is about 70 percent of it

Cost per run

$0.73

122 runs a month

Suggested spend cap

$140

Your total plus 50 percent headroom

This agent burns about 13M tokens a month and costs about $89 to keep running. Tokens are the larger half of that bill, so the thing to watch is context size, not the size of the box it runs on.

If the loop misbehaves

A retry storm or a task firing more often than intended can easily triple token use. That would take this agent to $190 for the month. A cap of $140 stops it well before that, while still leaving room for a busy week.

How the estimate is calculated

The calculator turns your agent's shape into a monthly token count, prices it at the rates you enter, and adds what you pay for hosting. It runs entirely in your browser and nothing you type is sent anywhere.

Turns per month = runs per day x days x turns per run.
Token spend = input tokens x input price + output tokens x output price.
Total = token spend plus your monthly hosting cost.
Suggested cap = the total plus 50 percent headroom.

Why input tokens usually dominate

An agent loop re-sends the conversation so far on every turn, so context grows as a run progresses. That makes input the larger share of most agent bills even though output is priced higher per token. A flat figure per turn is therefore a floor, not a ceiling. Where your provider offers prompt caching the repeated portion gets much cheaper, so check whether the price you enter should reflect that.

Sizing a spend cap

Steady usage is rarely what causes a surprise bill. The usual causes are a loop that retries, a task firing more often than intended, or a tool returning far more text than expected. Size the cap against a bad day rather than an average one, and set it somewhere that hitting it stops the agent instead of only warning you.

Frequently asked questions

How much does it cost to run an AI agent 24/7?

It depends almost entirely on how often the agent runs and how much context each turn carries, not on uptime. A scheduled agent doing a handful of runs a day usually costs more in model tokens than in hosting. Enter your own numbers above to get a figure for your case.

Why is my agent's token spend higher than expected?

Agent loops re-send the accumulated conversation on every turn, so a long run costs far more than the same prompt sent once. Retries, chatty tool output, and tasks firing more often than intended are the other common causes.

What spend cap should I set for an AI agent?

Set it against a bad day rather than an average one. A common approach is your expected monthly cost plus 50 percent headroom, enforced as a hard stop so the agent halts rather than only warning you.

Is this calculator free?

Yes. It runs entirely in your browser, needs no sign-up, and nothing you enter is sent to us.

Run it 24/7 without the devops sidequest

Qoren runs OpenClaw, Hermes and Codex agents in managed cloud environments, with the spend cap enforced for you. No Docker and no VPS to babysit.

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