AI SPEND & ROI SNAPSHOT
What AI work actually costs a small business
Measured on our own platform, task by task, from three months of real usage. Then a plain way to work out what AI returns for your business, and a free snapshot of your own spend if you want one.
The model cost of one task, measured
Median cost per task on Accelimate AI, July 1 to September 28, 2026, across the businesses on the platform, including our own.
THE FULL TABLE
Tokens and model cost, task by task
Tokens are how AI work is metered: roughly, the words it reads and writes. Model cost is what the AI provider charges for those tokens at its list rates. Both are medians, so one unusually long job does not move the figure.
| Task (how many we measured) | Tokens | Model cost |
|---|---|---|
| Edit a page by chat (116 edits, 7 businesses) | about 16,900 | 13.2¢ |
| Draft a post or article (145 drafts, 4 businesses) | about 3,700 | 2.9¢ |
| Propose a website test (44 proposals, 26 websites) | about 2,200 | 1.7¢ |
| Review a website for problems (796 reviews, 41 websites) | about 1,900 | 1.5¢ |
| One AI step in an automation (1,017 steps, 4 businesses) | about 375 | 0.65¢ |
| Answer a website chat message (25 replies, 4 businesses) | about 560 | 0.4¢ |
A worked month: 20 page edits, 8 drafted posts, 200 website chat replies and 4 site reviews come to about 490,000 tokens and about $3.81 of model cost.
Source: our own usage records for July 1 to September 28, 2026, across the businesses on Accelimate AI, including our own. No single business's figures are shown: every row covers at least four businesses or websites.
WORKING OUT THE RETURN
The tokens are the small number. The work is the one that matters.
On the figures above, the AI itself is a few dollars for a month of real work. The question worth asking is whether the tools you pay for are doing much of your work at all. Three questions answer it.
01
What do you pay for AI each month?
Every subscription and every seat, including the ones bundled into software you bought for something else. Write down the monthly figure for each.
02
What work did it do last month?
Count finished work, not activity: pages changed, posts published, customer messages answered, leads followed up, invoices chased. If you cannot count it, that is the finding. You are paying for access, not for output.
03
What would that work have cost otherwise?
Price each piece at your own hourly rate, or at what you pay someone to do it. The return is that figure minus what you paid in step one. Use your own numbers; nobody else's rate means anything for your business.
Get your AI Spend & ROI Snapshot
Free, for your business, from a person on our team.
Tell us which AI tools you pay for and roughly what each costs a month, and choose Sales as the inquiry type.
We reply within one business day with your snapshot: what you spend on AI each month, what that spend is doing for you, and where two tools are paying for the same work.