AI API Markup & Pricing Calculator

Set a resale price and see your margin per request.

Quick answer

With the default inputs, $0.0800 price per request — $0.0600 margin · $6,000.00/month profit. Enter your own numbers below to recompute instantly; the full step-by-step math is shown under the worked example.

API cost per request($)

Markup(%)

Requests per month

Results update automatically as you type.

Result

$0.0800 price per request

$0.0600 margin · $6,000.00/month profit

API cost / request: $0.0200
Markup: 300.0%
Your price / request: $0.0800
Gross margin / request: $0.0600
Monthly gross profit: $6,000.00

Reselling AI in your product? Enter your API cost per request and a markup to see your customer price, margin and monthly gross profit.

How this is calculated

Customer price = API cost per request × (1 + markup%). Margin per request = customer price − API cost. Monthly gross profit = margin per request × requests per month. A 300% markup, for example, means you charge 4× your cost, leaving a 75% gross margin on the request itself.

Is this a good result? What to do next

The markup has to cover more than the API bill — infrastructure, support, failed/retried calls, free-tier usage and profit. Many AI SaaS products mark raw API cost up several times over for that reason. A markup that only just clears the API cost will leave you unprofitable once real overhead is included.

Typical planning ranges

Common resale markup on raw API cost: ~3–10×
Resulting gross margin at 300% markup: 75%
SaaS gross-margin target: ~70–80%+

Ranges are typical planning figures to sanity-check your result, not authoritative benchmarks. Your numbers will vary with use case, volume, and vendor.

How to improve this number

Lower your API cost per request so the same price yields more margin.
Add usage tiers or overage pricing for heavy users.
Bundle value (features, support) to justify a higher price than cost-plus.

Common mistakes

Setting price at cost-plus without covering support, infra and free users.
Ignoring retries and failed calls that raise real cost per served request.
Assuming average usage when a heavy-user tail erodes blended margin.

When to use a different approach

To check margin from the workload side rather than a flat cost, use the gross margin per request calculator. For seat-based products, use the per-seat AI pricing calculator.