How to price an AI SaaS product without losing money
Price AI features from cost per user and target margin: estimate inference cost, add payment fees, choose a margin, and protect yourself from heavy users.
October 3, 2026 · 1 min read
Pricing an AI product starts where classic SaaS pricing doesn't: with the variable cost of serving one user.
Step 1 — Estimate cost per user
Multiply tokens per request by requests per user per month, using your model's input and output prices. Include cached input at its discounted rate. The LLM cost per user calculator does this for common models.
Step 2 — Add the other variable costs
Hosting per user, email, storage, and the payment fee: a percentage of the price plus a fixed amount per charge.
Step 3 — Choose a target margin
Example: $3.24 AI cost, $0.50 other cost, $0.30 fixed fee, 2.9% fee and a 75% target margin give a minimum of about $18.28/month — so a $19 plan works, a $15 plan doesn't. Try your own numbers in the AI pricing calculator.
Step 4 — Protect the margin
- Price on the heavy-user percentile, not the average.
- Use credits, fair-use limits or usage tiers for expensive actions.
- Revisit pricing when providers change prices or you change models.
Step 5 — Check it in production
Estimates drift. Track AI cost against revenue daily and set a margin floor alert so a pricing assumption that stops holding is caught in days, not quarters.
Frequently asked questions
How do I calculate the minimum price for an AI plan?
Minimum price = (AI cost per user + other variable cost per user + fixed payment fee) ÷ (1 − target margin − percentage payment fee).
Should AI features be unlimited?
Unlimited plans are a bet that most users are light. Fair-use limits, credits or usage tiers protect margin from the heaviest users.
Related
- How to calculate SaaS gross margin (with a worked example)The SaaS gross margin formula, what belongs in COGS, a worked example with AI and cloud costs, and the mistakes that make margin look better than it is.
- What counts as COGS for a SaaS company?A practical list of what belongs in SaaS cost of goods sold — hosting, AI APIs, payment fees, support — what doesn't, and how to treat staging, credits and tools.
- AI SaaS gross margins: what to expect and how to improve themWhy AI products often run lower gross margins than classic SaaS, which costs drive the gap, and practical levers — model mix, caching, pricing — to improve margin.
- How to calculate LLM cost per userCalculate LLM API cost per request and per user from tokens, model prices, caching and usage — with a worked example and the mistakes that underestimate cost.
See your real margin in five minutes.
Connect Stripe and your cost providers with read-only access. Free for two connections — no card required.