REAL CONVERSATIONS. A CLEARER BUDGET.
What could your conversations cost?
Start with the number of conversations you expect. Here, one conversation means 10 customer messages and 10 AI replies.
Estimated managed AI usage$16.65for 1,000 conversations / monthAbout $0.017 per conversation in this example
23,700,000 input tokens1,200,000 output tokens
23.7M input × $0.50/M + 1.2M output × $4.00/M
A planning estimate, not an included allowance or a fixed per-conversation price. Team plan and taxes are separate. What do a million tokens actually represent? +
In the everyday-support example, one complete conversation uses about 23,700 input tokens + 1,200 output tokens. One million input tokens covers roughly 42 conversations, which also need about 50,400 output tokens. One million output tokens covers roughly 833 conversations, which also need about 19.74 million input tokens. These are two parts of the same bill, not interchangeable allowances.
We assume 10 customer messages and 10 AI replies, 60 tokens per customer message, 120 per reply, and 1,500 tokens of instructions and knowledge on each reply. Input includes the growing history: 10 × 1,500 + 55 × 60 + 45 × 120 = 23,700. Output is 10 × 120 = 1,200. Message length, retrieved articles, summaries, translation and additional model calls change actual usage. These are examples, not measurements of your customers.
The estimate uses uncached input and generated output. It excludes caching discounts, additional reasoning tokens if used, and tool charges. Only provider usage records determine the final bill.
01Input is what the model reads.
Your instructions, supplied knowledge, the new message and earlier messages all contribute. Reading the history again uses tokens again.
02Output is what it generates.
A short confirmation and a detailed troubleshooting answer use different amounts. Ten replies do not have a universal token count.
03Same multiplier. Named model.
Managed usage uses standard provider rates ×2, with input and output counted separately. Bring your own key to pay your provider directly, without an Orka markup.
API rates, not ChatGPT or Claude consumer subscriptions. Provider-specific charges use the same ×2 multiplier for managed usage. Free-plan conversation translation requires your own key. Check the model and current rate before enabling paid usage.