AI Margin Calculator
Understand how your AI spend impacts your margins. See cost per customer, AI as a percentage of revenue, and whether your AI features are profitable.
Your numbers
Your combined OpenAI / Anthropic / Google bill
Total MRR from paying customers
Paying customers (exclude free tier)
Your AI unit economics
AI gross margin
62.5%
Healthy
AI cost per customer
$100.00
per month
Revenue per customer
$333.33
per month
AI as % of revenue
30.0%
Within normal range
Break-even revenue
$15,000.00
to cover AI spend
AI spend vs attributable revenue
This calculator uses blended averages. Actual margins vary significantly by customer — some may be profitable, others not.
These are averages. PerUnit shows you the margin for each customer.
Some customers may be costing 3× more than others. Some free users may be more expensive than your Enterprise plan. PerUnit surfaces exactly that.
Get early access to PerUnitFrequently asked questions
- What is a good AI gross margin for a SaaS product?
- For most companies, a healthy AI gross margin is 60–80%. If your AI spend represents more than 20–30% of the revenue it generates, it's worth investigating which customers or features are driving the cost. Some teams discover that free-tier users consume the majority of their AI budget while contributing zero revenue.
- What does AI cost per customer mean?
- AI cost per customer is your total monthly AI API spend divided by the number of customers. It tells you how much you spend on AI to serve each customer on average. A high cost per customer relative to what they pay is a signal that you may need to gate features, reprice, or optimize prompts.
- How do I reduce AI costs in my SaaS product?
- The most impactful strategies are: (1) identify which customers or features are consuming the most tokens — often 20% of customers drive 80% of cost, (2) gate heavy AI features behind paid or higher plans, (3) switch lower-complexity tasks to cheaper models, (4) implement prompt caching for repeated context, and (5) set per-customer usage limits.
- Is it normal for free users to cost more in AI than paying customers?
- Unfortunately, yes — this is a common problem. Free users often have the same (or more) access to AI features as paid users, with zero revenue contribution. Teams using PerUnit frequently discover that their free tier consumes 40–60% of their total AI budget. Gating AI features behind paid plans or adding usage caps on free tiers are the standard fixes.
- What percentage of revenue should AI costs be?
- There is no universal benchmark, but most teams aim for AI costs to be under 10–15% of the revenue generated by AI-powered features. Above 30% is a warning sign. The key is to look at it per customer, not as a blended average — some customers may be highly profitable while others are net negative.