Cost formula
Seat allocation = total monthly budget × (seat weight / sum of weights); Per-seat cap = seat allocation ÷ (expected requests per seat × cost per request)
Calculator
Team seat + usage allocation planner
Set a monthly AI budget, model unit cost, and role weights. CentsPerToken splits spend across seats, translates budgets into requests, and shows hard caps before power users blow the pool.
Seat budget
Equal split per seat
$156.25/ seat · 32 seats
Unit cost $0.001149 · GPT-5 mini
Power-user / heavy seat$666.67
Light-user / seat$38.46
Monthly budget$5,000.00
Equal req / seat136,017
Tokens / request2,200
Heaviest roleEngineering · $217.39
Inputs
Budget & seats
Weight = relative usage intensity across roles.
Insights
Seat budget bars
Over / under flags vs the equal-split baseline.
Over equal · +$61.14 vs equal · 52.2% of budget · 189,241 req / seat · hard cap $195.65
Under equal · -$47.5543 vs equal · 13.0% of budget · 94,620 req / seat · hard cap $97.83
Under equal · -$11.3225 vs equal · 29.0% of budget · 126,161 req / seat · hard cap $130.43
Under equal · -$83.7862 vs equal · 5.8% of budget · 63,080 req / seat · hard cap $65.22
Weighted allocation gives heavier roles more budget. The power-user stress view shows what happens if 20% of seats burn 80% of spend—set hard caps before that blows the month.
Planning allocations only—not identity or SSO provisioning. Pair with provider spend alerts. Updated 2026-07-31. Approximate static list prices for planning only. Always verify against each provider’s official pricing page before production budgeting.
Guide
How to get value from this calculator
Split a monthly AI budget across team seats, roles, and per-seat request caps so each group gets a fair share without overrunning total spend. Helps engineering managers and ops teams govern internal API usage before provider-level caps kick in. Connects org structure to token budgets explicitly.
Why it matters
Unallocated budgets become tragedy-of-the-commons—one team's evals consume spend meant for production. Seat-level planning makes AI costs visible and governable inside organizations.
How to use it
- Enter total monthly AI budget approved for the team or organization.
- Add seats or roles with expected usage weight or priority.
- Set average cost per request based on model and token assumptions.
- Review per-seat dollar allocation and implied request caps.
- Adjust seat weights and watch over/under bars against the monthly budget.
- Adjust weights for roles that need heavier usage (e.g., ML vs support).
- Communicate caps to teams and monitor usage against allocations weekly.
Planning tips
- Reserve 10–15% of budget unallocated for spikes and new projects.
- Use heavier weights for production service accounts vs individual developer experimentation.
- Per-seat caps work best when paired with provider org-level spend alerts.
- Revisit allocations monthly as projects launch or wind down.
- Rebalance seats whose bars show persistent overspend before raising the total budget.
- Cost per request should reflect your dominant model and typical token profile.
Frequently asked questions
Is this the same as provider billing limits?
No. This is an internal planning and governance tool. Set provider spend caps separately in each provider's dashboard.
How do I estimate cost per request?
Use average input and output tokens with your primary model's list prices in the API cost calculator, then divide monthly cost by request count.
Should every seat get equal budget?
Not necessarily. Weight by role and expected usage. Production pipelines typically need more allocation than occasional chat access.
Are budget figures exact?
No. Allocations are planning estimates based on your inputs and approximate list prices.