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How much does an AI agent cost to run Spend Analysis?

Token cost benchmark for an autonomous Spend Analysis agent, across 13 models. Prices as of 14 Jun 2026.

An agent for Spend Analysis on the clean path costs about $0.0298 to $2.06 per outcome depending on the model, around 26x the cost of a single chat message. At 10,000 outcomes a month that is roughly $298 to $20,620.
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Cost per outcome by model

Model$/1M in$/1M outCost / outcomeCost / month*
GPT-4o mini$0.15$0.60$0.0298$298
Llama 4 Maverick$0.27$0.85$0.0521$521
Gemini 2.5 Flash$0.30$2.50$0.0691$691
GPT-4.1 mini$0.40$1.60$0.0796$796
DeepSeek V4$0.44$0.87$0.0812$812
Claude Haiku 4.5$1.00$5.00$0.206$2,062
Gemini 2.5 Pro$1.25$10.00$0.285$2,847
Mistral Large 3$2.00$6.00$0.384$3,836
GPT-4.1$2.00$8.00$0.398$3,980
GPT-4o$2.50$10.00$0.497$4,975
Claude Sonnet 4.6$3.00$15.00$0.619$6,186
Claude Opus 4.8$5.00$25.00$1.03$10,310
Claude Fable 5$10.00$50.00$2.06$20,620

*At 10,000 outcomes per month. Cheapest model highlighted.

What this agent does

The clean-path steps this benchmark prices:

  1. Aggregate Spend
  2. Data complete?
  3. Classify & Normalize
  4. Detect Savings & Maverick
  5. Opportunities found?
  6. Material opportunity?
  7. Confidence high?
  8. Publish Recommendations

What drives the cost

This path runs 8 steps: 4 tool calls, 0 reasoning steps, 4 decision points and 0 human checkpoints. Tool steps make two model calls each, and the agent re-reads its growing context on every call. That compounding is why one Spend Analysis outcome costs about 26x a single chat message ($0.619 on Claude Sonnet 4.6), not the price of one message.

Why these numbers matter.

Frequently asked questions

How much does an AI agent cost to run Spend Analysis?

On the clean path with default assumptions, an agent for Spend Analysis costs about $0.0298 to $2.06 per outcome depending on the model, or roughly $298 to $20,620 per month at 10,000 outcomes. The cheapest model here is GPT-4o mini at $0.0298; the most expensive is Claude Fable 5 at $2.06.

Why does an AI agent cost more than a single chatbot message?

An agent does not make one model call. It plans, calls tools, retrieves context and re-reads its growing working context on every step. For Spend Analysis that adds up to about 26x the cost of a single chat message.

Which model is cheapest for Spend Analysis?

Across the 13 models benchmarked, GPT-4o mini is cheapest at $0.0298 per outcome and Claude Fable 5 is the most expensive at $2.06. A cheaper model is not always the right choice, but it sets the floor for this workflow.

How can I reduce the cost of an agent for Spend Analysis?

The biggest levers are prompt caching on the base context, fewer planning loops, smaller tool results, less retrieval, and choosing a cheaper model where quality allows. You can test each lever in the live estimator.

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