Copy and fill to prove the business works. Full method: Phase 15.05, cheatsheet 18.
Author: <name> · Date: <date>
| Level | Formula | Value |
|---|
| Cost / request | (in_tok × in_price) + (out_tok × out_price) | <$> |
| Requests / task | agent loops + retries | <n> |
| Cost / task | cost/request × requests/task | <$> |
| Success rate | resolved ÷ attempted | <%> |
| Cost / resolved task | cost/task ÷ success rate | <$> ← the true unit |
| Tasks / user / month | usage | <n> |
| Cost / user / month | cost/resolved × tasks/user | <$> |
| (+) retrieval / vector DB / infra | per user | <$> |
| Metric | Value |
|---|
| Price / user / month | <$> |
| COGS / user / month | <$> (above) |
| Gross margin | <%> (target 70–80%+) |
| Lever | Effect | Before | After |
|---|
| Routing (cheap model for easy) | ↓ cost | | |
| Caching (prompt/prefix) | ↓ input cost | | |
| Token budget (trim context/output) | ↓ cost | | |
| Distill/fine-tune small model | ↓ cost | | |
- Model:
<seat / usage / value-based / outcome>
- Rationale: price to margin + value, not to compete; cap/meter usage to prevent power-user blowout.
- Usage caps:
<per-tenant budget / hard limit>
- API cost at volume V:
<$> · Self-host cost (GPU + ops) at V: <$>
- Break-even volume:
<V*> — below it, APIs win; above (with utilized GPUs), self-host wins.
| Metric | Value | Target |
|---|
| CAC | <$> | |
| LTV | <$> | |
| LTV:CAC | <x> | ≥ 3 |
| CAC payback | <months> | < 12 |
| NRR | <%> | > 100% |
Every request costs money. Model cost per resolved task and engineer the margin.