What an AI automation costs per run in 2026: tokens, credits and the 4-credit run fee

I went looking for a straight answer to "what does an AI automation cost per run" and did not find one. Zapier prices a task. Make prices an operation. n8n prices an execution. All three leave the AI itself on a separate bill from OpenAI or Anthropic, so the one number you want, what this run cost, is split across two invoices and never shown.

This page works it out. The numbers for Servflow come from its billing code. The model prices are illustrative tiers, because the real ones change monthly, and I say so where I use them.

Two things make up a run

A run is one execution of an automation from trigger to answer: the email arrived, the automation read it, decided, drafted, messaged you. Two costs go into it.

The AI. A model reads tokens and writes tokens. A token is a piece of text about three quarters of a word long. Models are priced per million tokens, with a lower rate for what they read (input) and a higher one for what they write (output). An email with the automation's instructions is about 6,000 input tokens. A short draft reply is about 800 output tokens.
The run itself. The tool's charge for the trigger, the steps, the retries, the trace. Zapier calls it a task, Make an operation, n8n an execution, Servflow a run fee.

On Servflow the two are added on one run and shown as one number. Credits pay for the AI at what it costs us, plus 4 credits a run. 1 credit is $0.001.

The model tiers I use below

Model prices move, so I use three illustrative tiers rather than name a model and be wrong by December. Servflow's dashboard shows the live rate for each model when you pick it.

Tier	Price per million tokens	Credits per million tokens on Servflow
Small	$0.15 in, $0.60 out	158 in, 633 out
Mid	$1 in, $5 out	1,055 in, 5,275 out
Large	$3 in, $15 out	3,165 in, 15,825 out

The credit figure is the dollar price times 1.055, the 5.5 percent routing fee Servflow pays on each call, at $0.001 a credit. There is no markup of Servflow's on top of that. Each model call is rounded up to the next whole credit.

One run of inbox triage

The automation reads one new email, decides whether it needs a reply, saves a draft in Gmail and messages you on Discord if it is urgent. One model call: 6,000 tokens in, 800 out.

Tier	Input	Output	AI cost in credits	Run fee	Total
Small	$0.0009	$0.00048	2	4	6
Mid	$0.006	$0.004	11	4	15
Large	$0.018	$0.012	32	4	36

So one email triaged costs between six tenths of a cent and 3.6 cents, and most of the difference is the model you picked.

One run opened in the Servflow dashboard: the agent name with a succeeded badge, Answered in 36 s, a What happened list with the schedule trigger, the sub agent as step 1 and each tool it called as steps 2 to 8, and a Details panel showing Started, Took 36 s, Credits used 4, Trigger Schedule — A run on Servflow, with its credit cost in the Details panel. This one ran on the team's own key, so it shows the 4-credit run fee alone.

A five-person team's month

Three automations a small team sets up first, with the token sizes I measured on my own runs, rounded.

Automation	Runs a month	Tokens per run	Small	Mid	Large
Inbox triage	300	6,000 in, 800 out	6	15	36
Daily report to Slack	22	20,000 in, 1,500 out	9	33	92
Meeting prep brief	60	10,000 in, 600 out	6	18	46
Month in credits			2,358	6,306	15,584
Plan that covers it			$10	$10	$25

The small and mid tiers fit in the $10 plan with room left. The large tier needs the $25 Starter plan. Credits stop at zero, so if the month runs long the automations stop rather than bill you past the plan.

The same month on the other tools

The comparison is not like for like, because the other three bill the AI separately.

	Servflow	Zapier	Make	n8n Cloud
Unit	A run: 4 credits plus the AI at cost	A task per successful action step; AI steps 1x, 3x or 5x tasks	A credit per module operation	An execution per run
The 382 runs above	2,358 to 15,584 credits, AI included	About 1,970 tasks	About 1,670 credits	382 executions
Plan that covers the runs	$10 or $25	More than the 750-task Professional plan at $29.99	Core at $10.59 ($9 billed annually)	Starter at €20 a month billed annually ($24 monthly)
The AI bill	In the credits	Separate, from your provider, unless you use AI by Zapier at 3 tasks a step	Separate, from your provider	Separate, from your provider
Cost of one run shown	Yes, on every run	No	No	No

Make is the cheapest plan here for plain data moving, and this page is not going to pretend otherwise. What Servflow does differently is put the AI and the run on one number, cap it at your plan, and show it on each run. Zapier's bill, Make's and n8n's each get their own page.

What makes a run expensive

My own traces show three things that make a run expensive. The first matters most.

Input size. A thread with twenty replies is ten times the tokens of a new email. Automations that read whole documents or long histories cost more per run than ones that read one message.
The model. The large tier is six times the mid tier and twenty times the small one. Most triage and drafting jobs read fine on the mid tier.
Tool calls. Each tool the automation calls means another model call to decide what to do with the result. A run that searches, reads and then drafts is three calls, each rounded up.

The run fee is the one part that never moves. Four credits, however many steps.

How this runs on Servflow

Every run on Servflow is a trace: the trigger, each step, each model call with its token count, and the credits it used. The runs list has a Credits column, and the bill for the month is the sum of that column. If one run costs more than the last, the trace says which step did it.

If you would rather pay your provider directly, add your own key. Servflow then charges only the 4-credit run fee and the provider bills the tokens.

FAQ

How much does an AI agent cost per run? The model's price for the tokens the run used, plus the tool's charge for running it. On Servflow a run is 4 credits plus the AI at cost, about 6 credits for inbox triage on a small model and 36 on a large one, with 1 credit worth $0.001. Other tools bill a task, an operation or an execution and leave the AI on a separate bill.

What is a token? A piece of text about three quarters of a word long. Models are priced per million tokens, with separate rates for what they read (input) and what they write (output). A typical email with its instructions is about 6,000 input tokens; a short reply is about 800 output tokens.

Why do AI automation costs vary between runs? Because the model decides how much to read and write. A long email thread is more input; a run that calls three tools makes three model calls. The run fee is fixed, the AI part moves with the work, and that is why a per-run number matters more than a plan price.

Is it cheaper to bring my own API key? On Servflow you then pay only the 4-credit run fee, and the provider bills you for the tokens at their list price. The total is about the same; the difference is who sends the bill. Built-in models cost the model's price per token plus a 5.5 percent routing fee.

How many credits does a small team need a month? For three automations, inbox triage on 300 emails, a daily report and prep for 60 meetings, about 2,400 credits on a small model, 6,300 on a mid one and 15,600 on a large one. That is the $10 plan for the first two and the $25 plan for the third.

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