How Much Does AI Content Generation Cost per Month?
At production volume (40,000 calls/month), the cheapest effective option is Llama 3.1 8B at $4.50/month. The most expensive frontier option, GPT-5.4 Pro, runs $11,712/month — Content generation flips the usual shape: a short brief in, a long piece of writing out — so the output price and verbosity matter more here than anywhere else in this cluster.
How much does content generation cost per month?
At production volume (40,000 calls/month), the cheapest effective option for content generation is Llama 3.1 8B at $4.50 per month, verbosity-adjusted rather than list price. The most expensive frontier model, GPT-5.4 Pro, runs $11,712 per month for the same workload.
Token shape
| Shape | tiny brief in, long piece out |
| Input / output tokens per call | 0K in / 2K out |
| Cacheable input | 0% |
| Batch-eligible | Yes |
Input is a short brief or outline; output is a full article, email, or ad-copy set. Briefs are usually unique per call, so nothing here is cache-eligible.
Volume
Ranked cost — Production volume (caching + batch applied where available)
| Model | Provider | List monthly | Effective monthly | Verbosity | Rank Δ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Llama 3.1 8Bbudgetlegacy | Groq | $5.60 | $2.25 | 0.77× | — |
| Amazon Nova Microbudget | Amazon | $8.96 | $3.47 | 0.76× | — |
| Ministral 8Bbudget | Mistral | $11.40 | $5.39 | 0.93× | — |
| Amazon Nova Litebudget | Amazon | $15.36 | $7.10 | 0.92× | — |
| GPT-5 Nanobudgetlegacy | OpenAI | $24.80 | $12.40 | — | ▲2 |
| Gemini 2.5 Flash Litebudgetlegacy | $25.60 | $12.80 | — | ▲2 | |
| Mistral Small 3.1budget | Mistral | $38.40 | $16.50 | 0.85× | ▲5 |
| GPT-4o Minibudgetlegacy | OpenAI | $38.40 | $19.20 | — | ▲1 |
| Grok-3 Minibudgetlegacy | xAI | $38.40 | $38.40 | — | ▲1 |
| Llama 4 Maverickbudgetlegacy | Groq | $39.20 | $19.60 | — | ▲3 |
| DeepSeek V4 Flashbudget | DeepSeek | $19.04 | $45.92 | 2.60× | ▼6 |
| Codestralbudget | Mistral | $58.80 | $23.73 | 0.79× | ▲4 |
| Llama 3.3 70Bbudgetlegacy | Groq | $56.84 | $23.92 | 0.81× | ▲2 |
| GPT-OSS 20Bbudget | Groq | $19.20 | $26.97 | 2.93× | ▼8 |
| GPT-5.4 Nanobudgetlegacy | OpenAI | $78.20 | $31.22 | 0.79× | ▲4 |
Show all 63 models
| GPT-OSS 120Bbudget | Groq | $38.40 | $34.14 | 1.83× | ▼5 |
| GPT-5.6 Lunabudget | OpenAI | $75.20 | $37.60 | — | ▲1 |
| Gemini 3.1 Flash Litebudgetlegacy | $94.00 | $41.60 | 0.88× | ▲3 | |
| Gemini 3.5 Flash Litebudget | $94.00 | $47.00 | — | ▲1 | |
| Mistral Medium 3budget | Mistral | $126 | $53.60 | 0.84× | ▲3 |
| GPT-OSS 120B (Cerebras)budget | Cerebras | $50.60 | $110 | 2.33× | ▼7 |
| GPT-5 Minibudgetlegacy | OpenAI | $124 | $62.00 | — | — |
| Qwen 3.7 Plusmid | Qwen | $133 | $133 | — | ▲1 |
| GLM-5.1midlegacy | Z.ai | $142 | $142 | — | ▲1 |
| Gemini 2.5 Flashbudgetlegacy | $155 | $77.40 | — | ▲1 | |
| DeepSeek V4 Probudget | DeepSeek | $59.16 | $180 | 3.31× | ▼9 |
| Qwen 3.8 30Bmid | Groq | $190 | $94.80 | — | ▲1 |
| Qwen 3.6 27Bmidlegacy | Groq | $190 | $94.80 | — | ▲1 |
| Amazon Nova Promid | Amazon | $205 | $102 | — | ▲2 |
| Grok 4.3mid | xAI | $170 | $233 | 1.42× | ▼3 |
| Grok-3midlegacy | xAI | $272 | $272 | — | ▲1 |
| o3-Minimidlegacy | OpenAI | $282 | $141 | — | ▲1 |
| GPT-5.4 Minimidlegacy | OpenAI | $282 | $141 | — | ▲1 |
| Gemini 3.1 Flashmidlegacy | $282 | $141 | — | ▲1 | |
| Claude Haiku 4.5mid | Anthropic | $316 | $158 | — | ▲2 |
| Grok-4.20 Reasoningmid | xAI | $392 | $392 | — | ▲2 |
| Grok-4.20mid | xAI | $392 | $392 | — | ▲2 |
| Mistral Large 3mid | Mistral | $392 | $196 | — | ▲2 |
| Qwen 3.8 Maxmid | Qwen | $410 | $410 | — | ▲2 |
| Qwen 3.7 Maxmid | Qwen | $410 | $410 | — | ▲2 |
| Gemini 3.1 Promid | $752 | $243 | 0.63× | ▲8 | |
| GPT-4.1midlegacy | OpenAI | $512 | $256 | — | ▲1 |
| Gemini 3.6 Flashmid | $564 | $282 | — | ▲1 | |
| Gemini 3.5 Flashmidlegacy | $564 | $282 | — | ▲1 | |
| GPT-5midlegacy | OpenAI | $620 | $310 | — | ▲1 |
| GPT-4omidlegacy | OpenAI | $640 | $320 | — | ▲1 |
| GPT-5.6 Terramid | OpenAI | $752 | $376 | — | ▲1 |
| GPT-5.4midlegacy | OpenAI | $940 | $470 | — | ▲2 |
| Claude Sonnet 4.6mid | Anthropic | $948 | $474 | — | ▲2 |
| Claude Sonnet 4.5midlegacy | Anthropic | $948 | $474 | — | ▲2 |
| Claude Sonnet 4midlegacy | Anthropic | $948 | $474 | — | ▲2 |
| GLM-5.2mid | Z.ai | $286 | $1,044 | 3.87× | ▼16 |
| GLM 4.7 (Cerebras)mid | Cerebras | $201 | $1,282 | 7.55× | ▼23 |
| Claude Opus 4.8mid | Anthropic | $1,580 | $760 | 0.96× | — |
| Claude Opus 4.7midlegacy | Anthropic | $1,580 | $790 | — | — |
| Claude Opus 4.6midlegacy | Anthropic | $1,580 | $790 | — | — |
| Claude Opus 4.5midlegacy | Anthropic | $1,580 | $790 | — | — |
| GPT-5.6 Solfrontier | OpenAI | $1,880 | $940 | — | — |
| GPT-4 Turbofrontierlegacy | OpenAI | $1,960 | $980 | — | — |
| Claude Fable 5frontier | Anthropic | $3,160 | $1,580 | — | — |
| Claude Opus 4.1frontierlegacy | Anthropic | $4,740 | $2,370 | — | — |
| Claude Opus 4frontierlegacy | Anthropic | $4,740 | $2,370 | — | — |
| GPT-5.4 Profrontierlegacy | OpenAI | $11,280 | $5,856 | 1.04× | — |
Prompt caching assumes a 90% saving on the cacheable share of input — a stated modelling assumption, providers publish 75-90% off. See the full formula and coverage disclosure →