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How much does an AI agent cost to run Dependency Patching?

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

An agent for Dependency Patching on the clean path costs about $0.0421 to $2.90 per outcome depending on the model, around 37x the cost of a single chat message. At 10,000 outcomes a month that is roughly $422 to $29,000.
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Cost per outcome by model

Model$/1M in$/1M outCost / outcomeCost / month*
GPT-4o mini$0.15$0.60$0.0421$422
Llama 4 Maverick$0.27$0.85$0.0738$738
Gemini 2.5 Flash$0.30$2.50$0.0960$960
GPT-4.1 mini$0.40$1.60$0.112$1,124
DeepSeek V4$0.44$0.87$0.116$1,156
Claude Haiku 4.5$1.00$5.00$0.290$2,900
Gemini 2.5 Pro$1.25$10.00$0.396$3,962
Mistral Large 3$2.00$6.00$0.544$5,440
GPT-4.1$2.00$8.00$0.562$5,620
GPT-4o$2.50$10.00$0.702$7,025
Claude Sonnet 4.6$3.00$15.00$0.870$8,700
Claude Opus 4.8$5.00$25.00$1.45$14,500
Claude Fable 5$10.00$50.00$2.90$29,000

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

What this agent does

The clean-path steps this benchmark prices:

  1. Scan Dependencies
  2. Check Advisory & Exposure
  3. Affected & reachable?
  4. Breaking / major?
  5. Bump & Build
  6. Builds clean?
  7. Run Test Suite
  8. Tests pass?
  9. Confidence high?
  10. Open Patch PR

What drives the cost

This path runs 10 steps: 5 tool calls, 0 reasoning steps, 5 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 Dependency Patching outcome costs about 37x a single chat message ($0.870 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 Dependency Patching?

On the clean path with default assumptions, an agent for Dependency Patching costs about $0.0421 to $2.90 per outcome depending on the model, or roughly $422 to $29,000 per month at 10,000 outcomes. The cheapest model here is GPT-4o mini at $0.0421; the most expensive is Claude Fable 5 at $2.90.

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 Dependency Patching that adds up to about 37x the cost of a single chat message.

Which model is cheapest for Dependency Patching?

Across the 13 models benchmarked, GPT-4o mini is cheapest at $0.0421 per outcome and Claude Fable 5 is the most expensive at $2.90. 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 Dependency Patching?

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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