CrewAI cost calculator
CrewAI runs crews of agents that delegate tasks and hand context back and forth. Multi-agent means multiplied tokens. Model the crew's calls, tool use, handoffs and retries to see cost per task, monthly spend, and the multi-agent overhead.
Switching from GPT-5 to DeepSeek-V4 Pro (reasoner) (DeepSeek, same frontier tier) cuts monthly spend by $1.2K — 69% — for this workload.
Where each task's cost goes
| Model | $/task | $/successful | Monthly | vs current |
|---|---|---|---|---|
CHEAPEST Groq · fast | $0.0357 | $0.0397 | $71.40 | cheapest |
| OpenAI · fast | $0.036 | $0.04 | $71.95 | cheapest |
| Gemini · fast | $0.0671 | $0.0746 | $134 | 1.9× |
| OpenRouter · mid | $0.0733 | $0.0815 | $147 | 2.1× |
| DeepSeek · mid | $0.0897 | $0.0996 | $179 | 2.5× |
| OpenRouter · mid | $0.1486 | $0.1651 | $297 | 4.2× |
| OpenAI · mid | $0.1799 | $0.1998 | $360 | 5.0× |
| Gemini · mid | $0.217 | $0.2412 | $434 | 6.1× |
| Together · mid | $0.2378 | $0.2642 | $476 | 6.7× |
| DeepSeek · frontier | $0.2783 | $0.3092 | $557 | 7.8× |
| Groq · mid | $0.4194 | $0.466 | $839 | 11.7× |
| Anthropic · mid | $0.6832 | $0.7591 | $1.4K | 19.1× |
| Together · mid | $0.735 | $0.8167 | $1.5K | 20.6× |
CURRENT OpenAI · frontier | $0.8993 | $0.9992 | $1.8K | 25.2× |
| Gemini · frontier | $0.8993 | $0.9992 | $1.8K | 25.2× |
| OpenAI · frontier | $1.37 | $1.52 | $2.7K | 38.3× |
| Anthropic · frontier | $2.05 | $2.28 | $4.1K | 57.4× |
| Anthropic · frontier | $3.42 | $3.80 | $6.8K | 95.7× |
Per-1M-token list prices; figures are estimates and exclude embeddings, fine-tuning, image/audio, and infrastructure. Rows marked verifystill need a final check against the provider's live pricing. LLM prices change often.
Frequently asked questions
Why are CrewAI multi-agent costs higher than a single agent?+
Every delegation and handoff re-sends context to another agent, and each agent carries its own system prompt and tool schemas. A 3-agent crew can easily cost 2–4x a single agent for the same task. Set the handoff count in the calculator to model your crew's topology.
How do I reduce CrewAI token costs?+
Cut handoffs, keep per-agent system prompts and tool schemas lean (they re-bill on every turn), enable prompt caching, and route cheaper sub-tasks to a smaller model. The comparison table and caching toggle quantify each lever.
Can I mix models across a CrewAI crew?+
Yes — a common cost optimization is a frontier model for the planner and a cheaper model for worker agents. This calculator estimates a single model at a time; run it once per role and add the monthly spends to model a mixed crew.
What's the cheapest provider for CrewAI?+
For tool-heavy worker agents, open-model hosts (Groq, Together) and DeepSeek are often dramatically cheaper per token. The comparison table prices your crew profile across all of them.