ai-cost-check
Calculate AI feature costs and challenge if you actually need it. Invokes ai-cost-analyzer agent for detailed economics modeling.
What this skill does
# AI Cost Check Before you build an AI feature, answer two questions: 1. **Do you actually need this feature?** 2. **Can you afford it?** Most PMs skip #1 and regret #2 later. ## Entry Point When this skill is invoked, start with: ``` ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ AI COST CHECK ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ AI features have marginal costs that scale with usage. Model this BEFORE building, not after launch. What AI feature are you considering? ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ``` ## Usage ``` /ai-cost-check [feature-name] ``` **Examples:** - `/ai-cost-check "product recommendations"` - Calculate recommendation costs - `/ai-cost-check "email composer"` - Model email generation economics - `/ai-cost-check --compare` - Compare cost across different models ## What Happens 1. Invokes the **ai-cost-analyzer** agent 2. **Challenges the premise first** - Do you have evidence users want this? 3. **Models the economics** - Cost per request, cost at scale, % of revenue 4. **Provides a verdict** - Sustainable, viable but expensive, or unsustainable 5. **Shows optimization paths** - Caching, model selection, prompt optimization ## The Philosophy AI products have marginal costs that scale with usage. Every user interaction costs money. Model this BEFORE building, not after launch when you're hemorrhaging cash. ## Cost Thresholds | AI Cost as % of Revenue | Status | Recommendation | |-------------------------|--------|----------------| | <15% | Sustainable | Build it | | 15-30% | Viable | Build with optimization plan | | >30% | Unsustainable | Don't build (or fundamentally rethink) | ## What You'll Get ``` FEATURE DETAILS: - Model: GPT-4 Turbo - Calls per recommendation: 1 - Input: 1,500 tokens - Output: 300 tokens COST BREAKDOWN: Per request: $0.024 Per user/month: $2.16 | Scale | Monthly Cost | Your Revenue | AI % of Revenue | |-------|-------------|--------------|-----------------| | 100 | $216 | $2,000 | 10.8% | | 10K | $21,600 | $200,000 | 10.8% | VERDICT: Sustainable at 10.8% of revenue OPTIMIZATION PATHS: 1. Caching (saves 40-60%): $8,640/month at 10K users 2. Model selection (saves 70%): Use GPT-3.5 for simple cases ``` ## Model Price Reference (January 2025) | Model | Input | Output | |-------|-------|--------| | GPT-4 Turbo | $0.01/1K | $0.03/1K | | GPT-4o | $0.005/1K | $0.015/1K | | GPT-3.5 Turbo | $0.0005/1K | $0.0015/1K | | Claude 3.5 Sonnet | $0.003/1K | $0.015/1K | | Claude 3 Haiku | $0.00025/1K | $0.00125/1K | ## Related Commands - `/ai-health-check` - Full pre-launch readiness audit - `/four-risks` - Includes viability (business model) risk - `/pmf-survey` - Validate willingness to pay --- **Key insight:** "Most AI features are solutions looking for problems. Validate the problem before modeling costs."
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