Guides & articles
Practical articles and guides on estimating and reducing AI API costs — written from real workloads, not marketing copy.
2026-07-24
n8n Pricing Explained: Cloud vs Self-Hosted Real Costs (2026)
What n8n actually costs in 2026: Cloud plans vs self-hosting on a VPS, the execution-based billing advantage over Zapier and Make, and worked examples with AI workflows.
2026-07-24
Pinecone Pricing & RAG Costs: What You'll Actually Pay (2026)
Pinecone serverless pricing decoded — storage, read/write units and what a real RAG knowledge base costs per month, with worked examples and the LLM line that dominates every RAG bill.
2026-09-17
How Much Does the OpenAI API Cost? 3 Real Examples (2026)
OpenAI API pricing explained with three worked examples: a support chatbot, a content generator and a high-volume classifier — plus the cost traps that inflate real invoices.
2026-09-17
Claude vs GPT vs Gemini: API Pricing Compared (2026)
Side-by-side LLM API pricing: OpenAI GPT, Anthropic Claude and Google Gemini on the same workload, plus how their prompt-caching discounts differ.
2026-09-17
What Does It Cost to Run AI Automations? An n8n + LLM Budget Guide
The two bills behind every AI automation — the workflow platform and the LLM tokens — with a worked example and seven ways to keep both under control.
2026-09-17
How Much Does an AI Chatbot Cost in 2026? Real Numbers by Scale
What an AI chatbot actually costs per month at small, medium and large scale — token bills computed from verified prices, plus the infrastructure and human costs nobody budgets.
Quick guides on the calculator page
- How AI API pricing worksThe billing model behind every LLM provider: tokens, input vs output rates and optional charges.
- How caching can reduce AI costsPrompt caching can cut input costs 50–90% — when it applies and when it doesn't.
- Common hidden costs of AI automationVector databases, retries, monitoring and human review: the costs that never show up on the pricing page.
- How to reduce AI API costsSeven practical levers, ordered by impact, to bring an LLM bill down without hurting quality.
- Cheaper model vs premium modelA decision rule for picking the right price tier per task instead of defaulting to the flagship.