AI API Pricing: The Complete 2026 Guide

AI API pricing is typically calculated based on token consumption. Tokens are the fundamental units of text processing — roughly 1 token equals about 0.75 English words. Providers charge per token for both input (the prompt you send) and output (the response generated). Some providers also offer subscription plans with monthly quotas of tokens or credits at a fixed price.

Pay-per-token (API pricing) charges you for exactly what you use — no commitment, but costs can be unpredictable at scale. Subscription pricing offers a fixed monthly fee for a pool of tokens or credits — costs are predictable, but you pay whether you use them or not. Chinese providers like MiniMax, Tencent Hunyuan, and Xiaomi MiMo specialize in subscription plans starting at ¥28-39/month, while US providers like OpenAI and Anthropic focus on pay-per-token models.

Larger context windows mean more input tokens per request, which increases cost. A 1M context window (DeepSeek, Gemini Pro) can consume significantly more tokens per query than a 128K window (GPT-5). Some providers like Google Gemini charge double for prompts exceeding 200K tokens. For most applications, a smaller context window with good caching strategy is more cost-effective than paying for unused context capacity.

Cache pricing applies when you repeatedly send the same input tokens (e.g., shared system prompts, common context). Providers discount cache hits by 90-98% compared to standard input pricing. DeepSeek V4 offers the best cache discount at 98% ($0.0028/1M), followed by OpenAI/Anthropic at 90%. Google Gemini has a more complex model — per-token cache discount plus hourly storage fees ($1-4.50/1M tokens/hour), which can add up if you cache large prompts but rarely hit them.

Yes. Most providers offer 50% discount on batch API calls — you submit jobs asynchronously and receive results within 24 hours. OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google Gemini all support batch discounts. DeepSeek does not offer a separate batch API, but its standard pricing is already cheaper than competitors' batch rates. Batch API is ideal for offline data processing, bulk content generation, and non-real-time workloads.

Z.AI (Zhipu) GLM-4.7 Flash is currently free with no usage limits — ideal for prototyping and development. Google Gemini offers 5,000 prompts per month free across all Gemini 3 models. Cursor Free tier provides limited agent requests and 2,000 completions per month. Most other providers offer trial credits upon signup rather than ongoing free tiers.

To estimate monthly costs: 1) Estimate your daily request volume and average tokens per request (both input and output). 2) Multiply by the provider's per-token rate. 3) Factor in cache hit rate — if 60% of your prompts share a system prompt, 60% of input tokens may be cached. 4) For high-volume workloads, compare pay-per-token vs subscription costs. DeepSeek V4 is most cost-effective above 100M tokens/month, while subscriptions from MiniMax or Xiaomi MiMo are better for predictable workloads under 50M tokens/month.