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Which Is Cheaper for You?
The API is cheaper by
per month, at your usage
API, per month
$3.22
304 requests at $0.0106 each
Subscription, per month
$20.00
1 person × the per-person price
Where you are on the scale
One side is flat; the other grows with every request
The difference
Drop in a paystub, bank statement or screenshot — the AI reads it and fills these fields for you.
Income & Expense Tracker is where this stops being a one-off number: keep your real balances there and the projection updates itself.
Describe an invoice and the AI writes it. PDF without watermarks, free.
A subscription and an API bill do not differ by a percentage, they differ in shape: one is a straight line at a fixed height, the other climbs with every request. That is why "which is cheaper" has no general answer and "how far am I from the crossing point" has a very useful one. API rates here come from the providers' own pages, OpenAI and Anthropic among them; the subscription price is yours to supply.
A subscription is per person and an API key is shared. For a team of five that is a five-fold difference on one side and none on the other, and it settles the question more often than usage does.
People underestimate replies far more than prompts, and output costs several times what input does. Paste something you actually sent.
If your usage is heavy enough to make the API look expensive, it may be heavy enough to hit the subscription’s cap. A flat fee you cannot fully use is not the bargain it appears.
A subscription for the interface you live in and an API key for what you automate is a common and sensible split. Price the automated part on its own.
Find the crossing point, see which side of it you are on, then decide with features and limits in hand — not on price alone.