AI now costs almost nothing: redo your numbers
The price of AI has collapsed since early 2025. The use case you shelved because it was "too expensive" is probably profitable again.
The math changed without you noticing
Eighteen months ago, you may have had this conversation. An idea to automate something with AI — sorting incoming emails, classifying tickets, extracting data from thousands of invoices — then the quote, then the verdict: "interesting, but too expensive for what it brings in." Case closed.
Reopen it. Because the price didn't wait.
AI's tariff has melted
Since early 2025, the cost of a call to an AI model has collapsed. Not dropped: collapsed. And the offer split into tiers, like fuel grades: from the light, near-free model to the high-end one reserved for hard tasks.
A few markers, public rates in mid-2026, per million "tokens" (the billing unit, roughly 750,000 words):
- a light model, like Claude Haiku: ~$1 in, ~$5 out;
- a mid model, like Claude Sonnet: ~$3 / ~$15;
- a high-end model, like Claude Opus: ~$5 / ~$25.
Translation: for most repetitive tasks — classify, sort, extract, summarise — the light model is plenty. And it costs cents.