Skip to content
BrainRoad BrainRoad
Documentation Menu

API Costs Explained

How AI provider costs work with BrainRoad's bring-your-own-key model.

On this page

Two Separate Costs

When you use BrainRoad, you have two independent costs:

  1. BrainRoad subscription — Pays for hosting, storage, and infrastructure. Fixed monthly or annual price.
  2. AI provider usage — Pays for the tokens your agent consumes. Variable, billed directly by the provider (Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, etc.).

BrainRoad never touches your API spend. There is no markup, no middleman fee, no hidden surcharge on token usage.

Typical Monthly API Costs

Costs vary widely depending on how active your agent is and which models it uses. Rough estimates:

  • Light usage (a few conversations per day, occasional web browsing) — $5 to $20/month.
  • Moderate usage (steady messaging across channels, regular research tasks) — $20 to $80/month.
  • Heavy usage (high-volume automation, long-running workflows, frequent code generation) — $80 to $300+/month.

These are provider costs, not BrainRoad costs. Your mileage will vary based on the model you choose and how much work your agent does.

Managing API Costs

Choose efficient models. Claude Sonnet is significantly cheaper per token than Claude Opus. For many tasks, the smaller model performs just as well. You can configure which model your agent defaults to.

Set spending limits at the provider. Anthropic, OpenAI, and Google all let you set monthly spend caps on your API account. This is the most reliable way to prevent surprise bills.

Monitor usage. Check your provider’s usage dashboard regularly. Your agent’s Activity tab also shows request volume, which helps you correlate activity with cost.

Start small. Begin with a single provider and a conservative usage pattern. Scale up once you understand your agent’s typical consumption.