AI Cost Calculator API

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The world's first AI model cost estimation API.

Calculate, compare, and optimize your AI spending across every major provider -- Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, Meta, and Mistral -- with a single API call.

No other product does this. Every AI startup, developer, and enterprise building on LLMs needs to understand and control their costs. This API makes that trivial.

Why This Exists

• There is no unified API to calculate AI model costs across providers.

• Pricing pages are scattered, inconsistent, and change frequently.

• Developers waste hours building internal cost-tracking spreadsheets.

• Finance teams have no programmatic way to forecast AI budgets.

This API solves all of that.

Related MCP server: volthq-mcp-server

Features

• Instant cost calculation for any model + token count

• Monthly cost estimation from daily usage patterns

• Cross-provider comparison sorted cheapest-first with savings analysis

• Budget-aware model finder -- find the best model under your cost ceiling

• Token estimation from raw text

• Batch vs standard pricing where providers offer discounts

• MCP server for integration with AI assistants (Claude, etc.)

• 15 models across 5 providers, updated regularly

Quick Start

npm install
npm start
# Server runs on http://localhost:5000

API Endpoints

Calculate Cost

curl -X POST http://localhost:5000/api/v1/calculate \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"model":"claude-sonnet-4","input_tokens":1000,"output_tokens":500}'

Monthly Estimate

curl -X POST http://localhost:5000/api/v1/estimate \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"model":"gpt-4o","requests_per_day":1000,"avg_input_tokens":2000,"avg_output_tokens":500}'

Compare All Models

curl -X POST http://localhost:5000/api/v1/compare \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"input_tokens":5000,"output_tokens":1000}'

Find Cheapest Model

curl "http://localhost:5000/api/v1/cheapest?input_tokens=1000&output_tokens=500&budget=0.01"

List All Models

curl http://localhost:5000/api/v1/models

List by Provider

curl http://localhost:5000/api/v1/models/anthropic

Estimate Tokens from Text

curl -X POST http://localhost:5000/api/v1/tokens \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"text":"How much would it cost to process this sentence?"}'

MCP Server

Use with Claude Desktop or any MCP-compatible client:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "ai-cost-calculator": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": ["src/mcp-server.js"]
    }
  }
}

Supported Models

Docker

docker build -t ai-cost-calculator-api .
docker run -p 5000:5000 ai-cost-calculator-api

License

MIT

Related projects

• 🧰 lazymac-mcp — Single MCP server exposing 15+ lazymac APIs as tools for Claude Code, Cursor, Windsurf

• ✅ lazymac-api-healthcheck-action — Free GitHub Action to ping any URL on a cron and fail on non-2xx

• 🌐 api.lazy-mac.com — 36+ developer APIs, REST + MCP, free tier

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