Cost Analysis
This page breaks down the AI and infrastructure costs that inform Softly's subscription pricing.
AI Costs (Claude Haiku)
Per-Call Costs
| Operation | Avg Input Tokens | Avg Output Tokens | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Task parse | ~200 | ~100 | ~$0.001 |
| Task edit | ~400 | ~100 | ~$0.001 |
| Suggestions | ~500 | ~200 | ~$0.002 |
Per-User Monthly Cost
| Tier | Max AI Calls | Estimated Actual Usage | AI Cost/User/Month |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | 5 | 3 | $0.003 |
| Pro | 200 | 20 | $0.02 |
| Family (per household) | 200 | 40 | $0.04 |
TIP
Most users won't hit their limits. The estimated actual usage is based on the assumption that power users parse ~1 task/day and use suggestions occasionally.
Haiku vs Sonnet
| Model | Cost per Parse | Quality for Structured Extraction |
|---|---|---|
| Claude 3.5 Haiku | ~$0.001 | Sufficient -- narrow prompt, JSON output |
| Claude 3.5 Sonnet | ~$0.01 | Marginally better, 10x more expensive |
Haiku was chosen because the task parsing prompt is highly constrained (fixed output schema, limited categories, clear instructions). The quality difference vs Sonnet is negligible for this use case.
At-Scale Projections
| Users | Free (70%) | Pro (25%) | Family (5%) | Total AI Cost/Month |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1,000 | $2.10 | $5.00 | $2.00 | $9.10 |
| 10,000 | $21 | $50 | $20 | $91 |
| 100,000 | $210 | $500 | $200 | $910 |
AI costs scale linearly and remain a small fraction of subscription revenue.
Subscription Revenue vs Cost
Assuming monthly pricing:
| Tier | Monthly Price | AI Cost | Margin |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | $0.003 | -$0.003 |
| Pro | $4.99/month | $0.02 | $4.97 (99.6%) |
| Family | $7.99/month | $0.04 | $7.95 (99.5%) |
Free users cost almost nothing. Paid users have 99%+ margins on AI costs. The main costs at scale will be infrastructure (server, database, CDN), not AI.
Lifetime Subscriptions
Lifetime purchases require a different sustainability calculation:
- Breakeven: A lifetime purchase at $79.99 (~$68 after Apple's 15% cut) covers ~80 years of Haiku AI costs. Not a sustainability concern.
- Mitigation: Most lifetime users have lower long-term engagement. Historically in consumer apps, lifetime purchasers churn within 6-12 months of active use, then become dormant (near-zero cost).
- Cap: Lifetime purchases may be removed or price-increased once the user base reaches a threshold where the risk is meaningful.
Infrastructure Costs
| Service | Est. Monthly Cost | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Server (Rails) | $20-50 | Single VPS or small instance |
| PostgreSQL | $15-30 | Managed or self-hosted |
| Deepgram | Usage-based | ~$0.01/minute of transcription |
| Expo Push API | Free | Included with Expo |
| RevenueCat | Free up to $2.5k MTR | Then 1% of revenue |
| New Relic | Free tier | 100GB/month ingest |
| GitHub Actions | Free tier | 2,000 min/month |
Total infrastructure for an early-stage app: ~$50-100/month. The first ~20 Pro subscribers cover this.