LLM pricing · OpenAI

o4-mini pricing: cost per message and per user (November 2026)

In short: o4-mini (OpenAI, model id o4-mini) costs $1.1 per million input tokens and $4.4 per million output tokens. A typical chat message costs about $0.0034, so a user on a $9.99 plan can send about 2,490 messages a month before they cost you more than they pay.

Price per million tokens

Input$1.1
Cached input (cache read)$0.275
Output$4.4

Cost per message and per user

One message = 1,500 input tokens (system prompt and recent history) and 400 output tokens.

Messages / monthAI cost / monthMargin on $9.99
Light user30$0.102$8.39
Typical user300$1.02$7.47
Heavy user3,000$10.23$-1.7

With prompt caching (two thirds of each prompt read from the cache), a message costs $0.0026, 24% less.

Calculate with your own numbers

Cost per message
$0.0034
AI cost per user / month
$1.02
Margin per user / month
$7.47
Break-even messages / month
2,490

List prices, standard tier, prompts under the long-context threshold. Averages hide your heaviest users: FiscaLLM shows this per real user.

Cheaper OpenAI models

Switching only your heaviest users to a cheaper model often fixes margin without touching everyone else's experience.

Similar price from other providers

Track o4-mini cost per user

Averages hide the users who cost you most. FiscaLLM reads token counts from each OpenAI response, prices them with the rates above (including cache reads and long prompts), and puts each user's AI cost next to what they paid through RevenueCat, Stripe or a CSV. Free and open source, with alerts and optional per-user caps.

meter.trackOpenAI(res, { userId, feature: "chat" });

See the demo dashboard or read the OpenAI cost per user guide.

Questions

How much does o4-mini cost per 1M tokens?

$1.1 per million input tokens, $0.275 per million cached input tokens, and $4.4 per million output tokens (standard tier, list price).

How much does one o4-mini message cost?

About $0.0034 for a 1,500-token prompt and a 400-token reply, or $0.0026 when two thirds of the prompt is read from the cache.

How many o4-mini messages can a $9.99 subscriber send?

About 2,490 a month before their AI cost uses up the $8.49 you keep after a 15% store fee. Past that, the user loses you money.

List prices from OpenAI's pricing page, standard tier; batch, priority and regional pricing differ. Check the provider for the latest. How these prices are audited.