Prototype planning
Monthly Cost Estimate
A plain-language projection for running Ask Audie. Drag the slider to see how cost changes as more people use the assistant about 5 times per week. Scroll down to see how storing and reusing common answers can drastically lower AI costs.
Active users per month
15people
15 → 100 users (steps of 5)
Visits per month
325
15 users × 5/week × ~4.33 weeks
Questions asked
3,250
About 10 questions per visit
Map views
650
Roughly 20% of questions show a map
Core app costs
What it takes to host the site, store data, and answer questions with AI.
Website hosting (Vercel Pro)
Runs the public site, chat API, admin tools, and scheduled jobs.
Fixed monthly platform fee.
$20
Database (Turso)
Stores chat history and admin data. Free tier fits early pilots; Developer adds backup.
Free tier is enough for early pilots.
$0–$5
AI answers (Cerebras)
Powers Ask Audie’s conversational responses. Cost grows with questions asked.
Largest variable cost as usage grows.
$5–$12
Search, maps & email
Embeddings for search, Mapbox maps (~20% of questions), and contact notification email.
Usually $0 at pilot scale; Mapbox stays within free tier.
$0–$3
Core total
$25–$40/ month
Typical monthly run cost for the assistant itself (SMS not included).
Security hardening
Recommended add-ons to reduce abuse, protect the chat API, and guard AI spend.
Edge protection (Cloudflare Free)
DNS proxy, basic DDoS shield, and Turnstile bot checks on forms.
Recommended before wider rollout.
$0
Chat rate limits (Upstash Redis)
Caps abusive traffic on the public chat API to protect AI spend.
Optional at small pilot size.
$0
Security add-on
$0/ month
Extra protection layer on top of the core app.
Core + security
$25–$40/ month
Full picture for a responsibly deployed pilot.
Lower cost with answer caching
Store and reuse answers to common questions (e.g. reporting location, housing, gate hours) so the assistant skips a fresh AI call when someone asks something similar again. Newcomers often ask the same things — caching those answers in the database can drastically cut AI spend (30–50% of questions, in a mature pilot).
AI answers without caching
Every question triggers a fresh AI response.
$5–$12
AI answers with caching & storage
Repeat or similar questions reuse stored answers instead of calling the AI again.
Hosting and database costs stay the same — savings come from fewer AI calls.
$3–$8
With caching (core)
$23–$36/ month
Estimated monthly cost once common answers are stored and reused.
With caching + security
$23–$36/ month
Cached costs plus recommended security hardening.
Potential savings
$2–$4/ month
Compared to live AI on every question. Savings grow as more users ask similar newcomer questions.
Good to know
- Figures are estimates, not invoices. Actual AI cost depends on answer length and how many questions already have stored shortcuts (maps, gates, commander info, etc.).
- Outbound SMS (Future Concepts demo texts) is not included — roughly $0 per message if sent every visit ($6+/month at 15 users).
- Answer caching is not fully enabled yet, but the section above shows how storing repeat answers could reduce monthly cost by $2–$4 at 15 users.