Chatbot Monthly LLM Cost Estimator
How much does it cost to run a production chatbot for 1,000 users per month? This calculator breaks down cloud API vs self-hosted LLM costs.
Recommended Setup
Cost Comparison: All Cloud Models
Based on 50M input + 15M output tokens/month
| Model | Provider | Monthly cost |
|---|---|---|
| Gemma 3 4B | $3.20 | |
| Llama 3.1 8B (Groq) | Groq | $3.70 |
| Gemma 3 12B | $3.95 | |
| gpt-oss-120b | OpenAI | $4.70 |
| Gemma 3n 4B | $4.80 | |
| Doubao Seed 2.0 Mini | Doubao (ByteDance) | $5.85 |
| Gemma 3 27B | $6.40 | |
| Gemma 4 26B A4B | $7.95 | |
| DeepSeek V4 Flash | DeepSeek | $8.00 |
| GPT-5 Nano | OpenAI | $8.50 |
| Qwen3.5-Flash | Qwen (Alibaba) | $8.50 |
| Qwen3 14B | Qwen (Alibaba) | $8.60 |
| GLM-4.7 Flash | Zhipu AI (GLM) | $9.00 |
| Doubao Pro 32K | Doubao (ByteDance) | $9.70 |
| Hunyuan TurboS | Hunyuan (Tencent) | $9.70 |
| Llama 4 Scout (Groq) | Groq | $10.60 |
| GPT-4.1 Nano★ recommended | OpenAI | $11.00 |
| Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite | $11.00 | |
| Qwen3 30B A3B | Qwen (Alibaba) | $11.25 |
| Qwen3 VL 32B Instruct | Qwen (Alibaba) | $11.30 |
| Gemma 4 31B | $11.40 | |
| Hunyuan T1 | Hunyuan (Tencent) | $15.40 |
| GPT-4o-mini | OpenAI | $16.50 |
| GPT-OSS 120B (Groq) | Groq | $16.50 |
| DeepSeek V3.2 | DeepSeek | $16.60 |
| Qwen3 Coder Next | Qwen (Alibaba) | $17.50 |
| DeepSeek V3 | DeepSeek | $22.00 |
| DeepSeek V3.1 | DeepSeek | $22.35 |
| Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct | Qwen (Alibaba) | $23.20 |
| Qwen3 32B (Groq) | Groq | $23.35 |
| Qwen2.5 VL 72B Instruct | Qwen (Alibaba) | $23.75 |
| Qwen2.5 72B Instruct | Qwen (Alibaba) | $24.00 |
| Qwen3.5-Plus | Qwen (Alibaba) | $24.70 |
| Qwen3.6 Flash | Qwen (Alibaba) | $26.45 |
| GPT-5.4 Nano | OpenAI | $28.75 |
| DeepSeek V3 (Mar 2025) | DeepSeek | $30.00 |
| Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite | $35.00 | |
| DeepSeek V4 Pro | DeepSeek | $35.05 |
| Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B | Qwen (Alibaba) | $38.00 |
| Llama 3.3 70B (Groq) | Groq | $41.35 |
| GPT-5 Mini | OpenAI | $42.50 |
| GPT-4.1 Mini | OpenAI | $44.00 |
| Qwen3.7 Plus | Qwen (Alibaba) | $44.00 |
| Qwen3.6 Plus | Qwen (Alibaba) | $45.75 |
| Qwen2.5 Coder 32B Instruct | Qwen (Alibaba) | $48.00 |
| Kimi K2.5 | Kimi (Moonshot AI) | $48.50 |
| Qwen3-Max | Qwen (Alibaba) | $49.80 |
| Gemini 2.5 Flash | $52.50 | |
| Llama 3.3 70B (Together) | Together AI | $57.20 |
| R1 0528 | DeepSeek | $57.25 |
| Doubao Seed 2.0 Pro | Doubao (ByteDance) | $59.05 |
| Kimi K2 | Kimi (Moonshot AI) | $63.00 |
| Kimi K2.5 (Together) | Together AI | $67.00 |
| Kimi K2 Thinking | Kimi (Moonshot AI) | $67.50 |
| DeepSeek R1 | DeepSeek | $72.50 |
| Qwen3 Coder Plus | Qwen (Alibaba) | $81.25 |
| Qwen3.5 397B (Together) | Together AI | $84.00 |
| Qwen3 Max Thinking | Qwen (Alibaba) | $97.50 |
| GLM-5 | Zhipu AI (GLM) | $98.00 |
| Claude 3.5 Haiku | Anthropic | $100 |
| GPT-5.4 Mini | OpenAI | $105 |
| Kimi K2.6 | Kimi (Moonshot AI) | $110 |
| Qwen3.7 Max | Qwen (Alibaba) | $119 |
| GLM-5-Turbo | Zhipu AI (GLM) | $120 |
| o4-mini | OpenAI | $121 |
| o3 Mini | OpenAI | $121 |
| Claude Haiku 4.5 | Anthropic | $125 |
| GLM-5.1 | Zhipu AI (GLM) | $136 |
| DeepSeek V4 Pro (Together) | Together AI | $171 |
| Moonshot V1 (128K) | Kimi (Moonshot AI) | $175 |
| Gemini 3.5 Flash | $210 | |
| GPT-5 | OpenAI | $213 |
| GPT-5 Codex | OpenAI | $213 |
| Gemini 2.5 Pro | $213 | |
| GPT-4.1 | OpenAI | $220 |
| o3 | OpenAI | $220 |
| o4 Mini Deep Research | OpenAI | $220 |
| GPT-4o | OpenAI | $275 |
| Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview | $280 | |
| GPT-5.4 | OpenAI | $350 |
| Claude Sonnet 4.6 | Anthropic | $375 |
| Claude Sonnet 4.5 | Anthropic | $375 |
| Claude Sonnet 4 | Anthropic | $375 |
| Claude Opus 4.7 | Anthropic | $625 |
| Claude Opus 4.6 | Anthropic | $625 |
| Claude Opus 4.8 | Anthropic | $625 |
| Claude Opus 4.5 | Anthropic | $625 |
| GPT-5.5 | OpenAI | $700 |
| o3 Deep Research | OpenAI | $1,100 |
| Claude Opus 4.8 (Fast) | Anthropic | $1,250 |
| o1 | OpenAI | $1,650 |
| Claude Opus 4.1 | Anthropic | $1,875 |
| Claude Opus 4 | Anthropic | $1,875 |
| o3 Pro | OpenAI | $2,200 |
| GPT-5 Pro | OpenAI | $2,550 |
| Claude Opus 4.7 (Fast) | Anthropic | $3,750 |
| Claude Opus 4.6 (Fast) | Anthropic | $3,750 |
| GPT-5.5 Pro | OpenAI | $4,200 |
| GPT-5.4 Pro | OpenAI | $4,200 |
| o1-pro | OpenAI | $16,500 |
Frequently Asked Questions
How many tokens does a typical chatbot conversation use?
A typical chatbot exchange uses 500–2,000 input tokens (conversation history + system prompt) and 100–500 output tokens. For 1,000 active users with 5 messages/day, expect 15–50M tokens/month.
What is the cheapest LLM for a production chatbot?
For most chatbot use cases, GPT-5.4 Nano ($0.20/1M input) or Groq Llama 3.1 8B ($0.05/1M input) offer the best cost/performance. For higher quality, Claude Haiku 4.5 ($1/1M) or GPT-5.4 Mini ($0.75/1M) are recommended.
When does self-hosting a chatbot LLM make sense?
Self-hosting makes economic sense when your monthly API spend exceeds the amortized cost of a GPU. At 50M tokens/month with GPT-4o Mini, you spend ~$10/month — far below the cost of any GPU. At 1B+ tokens/month, a single RTX 4090 could pay for itself in a few months.