How to use this calculator
A document assistant can have short answers but high input costs because retrieved passages, metadata, and instructions are included.
AI Costs
Document AI Cost Calculator
Use this for PDF chat, knowledge-base assistants, RAG workflows, and document summarization features.
Formula
Large-context input cost + answer output cost, multiplied by a retrieval buffer
What the result means
This page explains the arithmetic behind the estimate so you can adjust assumptions before using the number in planning.
Common questions
Does this include embedding costs?
No. Embeddings, vector storage, OCR, and parsing should be modeled separately.
Why use a larger buffer?
Retrieval quality, follow-up questions, and long documents can increase prompt size.
Can one average document size work?
Use separate scenarios for short, normal, and large documents when possible.