What AI costs you per month
Pick the model and how much work you give it. See the monthly API cost in dollars and euro.
Short: an e-mail. Medium: an offer from a few files. Long: a report from large documents.
Claude prices are Anthropic list prices as of November 2026. OpenAI and Google are approximate: check the provider's page. No prompt caching or volume discounts included.
Where the money goes
Zen Staff adds nothing on top of the AI price. Agents run on your computer, on your account. Prompt caching cuts the cost of instructions that repeat.
How it is calculated
Questions about cost
Do I pay for AI through Zen Staff?
No. Zen Staff does not resell AI. You use your own Claude or ChatGPT account, or your company's API key, and pay the provider directly.
Subscription or API key?
For yourself, on your own computer, a personal subscription works. The company server, which works for colleagues, uses only a company API key. Details in the article on subscriptions and API keys.
What is a token?
A piece of text, about three quarters of an English word. One A4 page is roughly 700 to 1,000 tokens.
How do I lower the cost?
Pick the model that fits the task (Haiku for simple work), reuse long instructions through prompt caching, and set a monthly cap on the API key.
More free tools
We don't sell AI. We give it hands.
Same Claude or ChatGPT account, now it actually works in your files.