Cost Calculators → Cost Scenarios
LLM Startup Monthly Budget — $10k MRR Stage
Realistic LLM cost breakdown for a B2B SaaS startup at $10k MRR (approximately 100 customers).
Low estimate
$480/mo
Mid estimate
$675/mo
High estimate
$1,050/mo
Assumptions
- 100 customers
- Each customer: 500 API calls/month avg
- 50k total calls/month
- Input: 1,500 tokens avg (with system prompt and context)
- Output: 400 tokens avg
- Target: LLM cost < 20% of revenue
Base model: Claude Sonnet 5 — $3/M input · $15/M output · 2026-08-19
Cost breakdown by component
System prompts + context55%
User content20%
Outputs25%
How to cut this cost by 50%+
Prompt caching at scale
At 50k calls/month, cached system prompts save $150-240/month
25-35% savings
Model routing (simple vs complex)
Route 60% of calls to Haiku/Flash for simple operations
30-40% savings
Calculate for your exact workload
These are estimates based on typical patterns. Enter your specific token counts and volume for a precise calculation.
Frequently Asked Questions
What should my LLM cost be as a percentage of revenue?
Target < 20% of COGS (cost of goods sold). At $10k MRR, that's roughly $500-2,000/month depending on your margin target. Most successful AI-native B2B products run 10-15% gross margin impact from LLM costs, with caching and routing bringing it down over time.
Pricing verified 2026-08-20. All figures are estimates with stated assumptions. See methodology.