Accurately predicting how much AI chat-based search will cost to run involves a bit of guesswork plus real-world testing because of the following variables:

1. 1. OpenAI’s pay-as-you-go charging model is based on the number of conversations and the length of your questions.
   2. How much it costs per conversation depends on which version of ChatGPT you use (MyCatalyst uses GPT-4 by default, but you can downgrade to GPT-3.5).
   3. AI search is a new investment for most organisations, which makes it difficult to predict how often your team will use it and therefore the total monthly cost.

How OpenAI charges

Pay-as-you-go is not an unfamiliar charging structure. However, how OpenAI calculates the ‘as-you-go’ cost is less straightforward.

Imagine you have a stack of tokens. When you ask AI a question, 1 token is taken from your pile. Not satisfied with your first answer, you follow-up with another question. This time, 2 tokens are removed from your pile. Still unsatisfied, you ask a final clarifying question, and a further 3 tokens disappear from the pile.

This set of 3 questions counts as one conversation, but the cost of that conversation increases every time you ask a follow-up question because the AI is re-running your previous questions. You’ve actually asked 6 questions, not 3.

To further complicate matters, OpenAI doesn’t charge 1 token per question because the number of tokens used depends on how long your questions are. The per conversation cost also increases between GPT-3.4 and GPT-4.

Make use of the price cap to conduct a trial

With OpenAI, you can cap how much you want to spend each month, just like running social media ads. We recommend that you take advantage of this cap to conduct real-world testing with a sample of your potential user base.

3 advantages of a paid-for trial:

1. Data from real-world usage means you can more accurately estimate the total monthly usage fees.
2. The AI search model needs refinement, and a trial is a risk-free way of testing and refining the tool with your content.
3. The fact that AI search doesn’t come with clear costs out of the box makes selling it to the wider organisation more difficult. With a more accurate cost estimate and customer feedback, you can present a more robust business case to stakeholders.

Getting started with MyCatalyst

If you’re an existing customer of Content Catalyst, MyCatalyst is ready to be integrated into your portal. Contact your account manager to discuss implementation and per-user fees.

If you’re a publisher of analyst research but not a customer of Content Catalyst, get in touch for a demo of our content management system and AI search tool.