Monthly API plan or pay per accepted call?
Enter a monthly API price and the number of successful calls you expect. This calculator compares that fixed monthly cost with SML’s published per-accepted-call price for the matching job. It does not assume a competitor, free tier, overage fee or success rate.
Calculate your break-even
The math
The calculator compares pricing structures only. A subscription may include broader features, higher throughput, crawling, JavaScript rendering, storage, anti-bot infrastructure or support that a narrow pay-per-call primitive does not provide. Choose based on the job, not just the cheapest number.
When pay-per-call is structurally useful
Spiky agent demand: autonomous agents may make zero calls for hours and then need a small burst. A per-call primitive avoids paying for idle capacity.
Many specialized tools: an agent can combine a $0.001 quote, $0.001 FX conversion and $0.001 URL read without maintaining three separate monthly accounts.
Budget policy: fresh x402 terms let the caller evaluate the exact current cost before it authorizes spend. A payment requirement is not settlement proof.
Failure-aware buying: SML’s narrow utilities are designed around preflight and accepted delivery, so unavailable or unsupported work should not be silently treated as a successful deliverable.
Open the exact job
Published SML marketing prices are useful for planning; the fresh target contract and PAYMENT-REQUIRED challenge are authoritative immediately before spend.