Model Pricing

How Pricing Works#

ModelStack uses a three-tier pricing model — Economy, Standard, and Premium — with a wallet-based rate applied pay-as-you-go. There's no separate "within cap" price; the same rate table applies to a model every time you use it, whether or not you have a subscription. The twist: the rate isn't just a function of tier anymore — it depends on which wallet pays, since bonus and prepaid use different rate tables.

Tier-Based Pricing#

Why Two Rates Per Tier?#

Bonus balance and prepaid balance are priced differently on purpose. Bonus (referral/promo credit) is meant to give you free usage, not a discount, so on Economy it's worth exactly face value (1.0x) and on Standard it's actually worth less than face value (1.5x — a markup). Prepaid balance is your real money, so it gets the real discount: 0.2x on Economy, 0.5x on Standard by default. Premium has no bonus rate at all — it's prepaid-only, always 1.0x.

Because the two rates differ, a single Economy or Standard request can be billed from both wallets at once. Bonus covers as much of the request's raw provider cost as your available bonus balance affords at bonus's rate; prepaid covers whatever raw cost is left, at prepaid's rate. See Example 4 below for the full math.

Which Tier Can a Model Use?#

Models priced at $3/M input tokens or less are eligible for all three tiers — Economy and Standard are simply discounted ways to run them. Models priced above $3/M input are Premium-only. (This is the platform's default fallback rule; a model's actual eligible tiers can also be configured directly and may differ from this price cutoff.)

Provider Pricing (Base Rates)#

These are the upstream provider costs before any tier rate is applied. Your actual cost is lower on Economy or Standard, especially when paid from prepaid.

Anthropic#

OpenAI#

Google#

DeepSeek#

MiniMax#

ZAI (GLM)#

Qwen#

Cost Calculation Examples#

Example 1: Standard Model, Prepaid, Default Rate#

Request: gemini-2.5-flash with 1,000 input tokens and 500 output tokens, Standard tier, paid entirely from prepaid

Provider cost:
├─ Input: 1,000 × $0.30 / 1,000,000 = $0.00030
├─ Output: 500 × $2.50 / 1,000,000 = $0.00125
└─ Total: $0.00155

Standard tier, prepaid rate (Google has no override, so the 0.5x default applies):
├─ Final cost: $0.00155 × 0.5 = $0.000775
└─ Paid from: prepaid wallet

Example 2: Standard Model, Prepaid, Family Override#

Request: gpt-4o-mini with 1,000 input tokens and 500 output tokens, Standard tier, paid entirely from prepaid

Provider cost:
├─ Input: 1,000 × $0.15 / 1,000,000 = $0.00015
├─ Output: 500 × $0.60 / 1,000,000 = $0.00030
└─ Total: $0.00045

Standard tier, prepaid rate (OpenAI family override: 0.2x instead of the 0.5x default):
├─ Final cost: $0.00045 × 0.2 = $0.00009
└─ Paid from: prepaid wallet

Example 3: Premium Model#

Request: claude-opus-4-6 with 1,000 input tokens and 500 output tokens, Premium tier

Provider cost:
├─ Input: 1,000 × $5.00 / 1,000,000 = $0.005
├─ Output: 500 × $25.00 / 1,000,000 = $0.0125
└─ Total: $0.0175

Premium tier (always 1.0x, no exceptions):
├─ Final cost: $0.0175 × 1.0 = $0.0175
└─ Paid from: prepaid wallet only

Example 4: A Request Split Across Both Wallets#

Request: any Standard-tier model, $100 raw provider cost (scaled up for readable numbers), $30 of available bonus balance, prepaid wallet funded

Bonus wallet (rate 1.5x):
├─ Raw cost bonus can afford: $30 ÷ 1.5 = $20.00
└─ Charged to bonus: $30.00

Prepaid wallet (rate 0.5x, default):
├─ Remaining raw cost: $100 − $20 = $80.00
└─ Charged to prepaid: $80.00 × 0.5 = $40.00

Total charged: $30.00 + $40.00 = $70.00
Effective blended rate: $70.00 ÷ $100.00 = 0.7x

If this user had no bonus balance at all, the full $100 of raw cost would go to prepaid at 0.5x, costing $50 — the plain default rate, no blending. The blended rate only shows up when a request draws from both wallets, and it depends on exactly how much bonus balance happened to be available at the time.

Example 5: Same Model, All Three Tiers#

Request: claude-sonnet-4-6, 1,000 input tokens and 500 output tokens — eligible for all three tiers since it's priced at $3/M input or less. Assume paid entirely from prepaid for a clean comparison.

Provider cost: $0.003 + $0.0075 = $0.0105

Economy (default prepaid rate, 0.2x):            $0.0105 × 0.2  = $0.00210
Standard (Anthropic family override, 0.35x):      $0.0105 × 0.35 = $0.003675
Premium (always 1.0x):                            $0.0105 × 1.0  = $0.0105

Result: Running the same model on Economy instead of Premium costs about a fifth as much here (when paid from prepaid); Standard lands in between.

Cost Estimation Formula#

provider_cost = (input_tokens × input_rate / 1,000,000) +
                (output_tokens × output_rate / 1,000,000)

# rate resolution depends on tier AND wallet:
# - Economy/Standard, prepaid: per-model override > per-family override > default (0.2 / 0.5)
# - Economy/Standard, bonus: fixed at 1.0 / 1.5, never overridden
# - Premium: always 1.0, prepaid only, never overridden
rate = tier_wallet_rate(model, tier, wallet)

final_cost = provider_cost × rate   # per wallet, then summed if split across wallets

Pricing Best Practices#

1. Prefer Economy or Standard When Possible#

Both get a real discount when paid from prepaid — Economy at 0.2x by default, Standard at 0.5x by default (as low as 0.2x with a per-model or per-family override). Premium is always full price (1.0x), with no exceptions. Bonus balance doesn't get this discount: it's 1.0x on Economy and a 1.5x markup on Standard.

2. Check for Family and Model Overrides#

Anthropic and OpenAI models default to a deeper Standard prepaid discount (0.35x and 0.2x respectively) than the general 0.5x default. gpt-5.4 and gpt-5.6-terra are pinned to 0.2x specifically. Economy currently has no overrides — every model uses the 0.2x default. Other providers' Standard rate uses the 0.5x default.

3. Spend Bonus on Economy, Not Standard, When You Can#

Since bonus is worth full face value on Economy (1.0x) but a 50% markup on Standard (1.5x), the same bonus balance stretches further on Economy-tier requests.

4. Reserve Premium for What Needs It#

Premium is prepaid-wallet-only and never discounted — use it for models that are Premium-only (priced above $3/M input), or when you specifically need Premium routing for a model that's also available on Economy or Standard.

Checking Costs in Dashboard#

Your Dashboard shows:

• Recent requests with per-request costs
• Cost breakdown by model and tier
• Wallet balance and transaction history