Calculator
Batch vs Real-Time Cost Calculator
Batch vs real-time cost calculator for LLM finance workloads: set jobs, tokens, deadline — see daily and monthly batch API savings vs direct.
Rates from aidevhub.io model catalog (each price verified on the vendor page), Anthropic pricing, OpenAI pricing and Google AI / Gemini pricing, checked on October 3, 2026.
Runs in your browser. Nothing you enter is uploaded, and no account or API key is needed.
1. Configure the workload
LLM requests per day.
Batch needs at least the vendor's 24 h window.
Saved per month with batch
$338
50% off: $675 real-time vs $338 batch per month (30 days).
Per day: real-time $22.50, batch $11.25, you pay $11.25. Batch-eligible — deadline 24h >= batch SLA 24h.
2. Per-provider comparison (cheapest model per provider at your workload)
| Provider | Model | Real-time / day | Batch / day | SLA | Deadline OK? |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| anthropic | Claude Haiku 4.5 | $11.25 | $5.63 | 24h | yes |
| openai | GPT-6 Luna | $1.13 | $0.563 | 24h | yes |
| Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite | $4.13 | $2.06 | 24h | yes |
"Deadline OK?" flips to no when your deadline is shorter than the vendor's batch SLA — in that case batch is forced off the table and you pay real-time prices.
How the math works
cost_per_job_realtime = input × price_in + output × price_out cost_per_job_batch = cost_per_job_realtime × (1 - batch_discount) cost_per_day = cost_per_job × jobs_per_day use_batch = supports_batch AND deadline_hours >= batch_sla_hours savings_per_day = use_batch ? realtime - batch : 0
List prices and batch terms verified 2026-10-03 against each vendor's pricing and batch documentation. The SLA is the vendor's maximum completion window; many batches finish sooner, but only the maximum is guaranteed.
How to use it
- Pick the model, then enter jobs per day and the input and output tokens per job.
- Set the deadline: how many hours your results can wait. Batch is only used when the deadline is at least the vendor's batch window (24 hours for every model in the table).
- Read the monthly saving, plus real-time versus batch cost per day and per month. Batch is billed at 50% of list price for input and output.
- If the saving shows $0, the line under it says what a 24-hour deadline would save, so you can decide whether the work can move overnight.
- Use the per-provider table to compare the cheapest Anthropic, OpenAI and Google model for the same workload, in both modes.
Questions people ask
What's batch vs. realtime?
Real-time API calls return as you make them, at list price. Batch endpoints (Anthropic Message Batches, the OpenAI Batch API, Gemini batch mode) accept many requests at once, complete them within a window of up to 24 hours, and bill input and output at 50% of list price. The calculator prices your workload both ways and applies batch only when your deadline allows it.
When is batching worth it?
Whenever results can wait for the batch window. Overnight research runs, end-of-day filing digests and weekly backfills fit; anything a trader or agent waits on in the moment does not. The calculator treats batch as usable only when your deadline is at least the vendor's 24-hour window, because that is the only completion time the vendors commit to, even though many batches finish sooner.
Are there volume limits?
Yes, per batch: Anthropic documents a cap of 100,000 requests (or 256 MB) per Message Batch, and OpenAI 50,000 requests per batch file. Larger workloads are split across several batches. The calculator does not check these caps, so split your daily job count yourself if it exceeds them; the per-job price is the same either way.
Does batching change quality?
It should not: a batch request runs the same model with the same parameters as a real-time call, and only the scheduling and the price differ. The tool does not measure output quality, so if your workflow is sensitive to it, compare a sample of batch and real-time outputs on your own prompts.
What about rate limits?
Real-time endpoints enforce per-minute request and token limits, while batch work is queued and processed against separate batch limits, so a backfill that would trip real-time limits can often run as a batch. The calculator models price and deadline only; it does not check your account's rate limits.
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Articles
- 11 min read Prompt Caching Economics for Finance
How Anthropic, OpenAI, and Gemini prompt caching works on finance workloads — 5-minute TTL, hit-rate patterns, and 50-90% input savings at the right design.
- 11 min read Batch API Economics for Finance Loops
When Anthropic Message Batches or OpenAI Batch cut cost by half on finance workloads — and the soft-deadline rule for when batch is not a valid choice.
- 11 min read Inference Cost Attribution per Idea and Trade
Append-only cost-event schema plus two canonical SQL queries — cost per idea, cost per validated trade — with cache-write amortization built in.
Use it from code
The same calculation as a JavaScript module you can import. It runs where you import it, with no request, key or rate limit.
import { compute } from "https://aifinhub.io/engines/batch-vs-realtime-cost-calculator.js";