LLM Costing for Database AI Apps. Live Experience. Live App. Open Source

On costing, a hard rule: Published API rates are a fantasy. Always test your specific use case and check the actual charged cost. Takeaways from 250+ structured tests and live experiences:

1. The Workhorse (80% of jobs): Single-step agents. Cost: ~$0.50 - $2.00 per 100 questions.

2. The Specialist (Critical tasks): Multi-agent setups. Warning: a 10X-50X cost multiplier. Cost $15-$20 per 100 que. Use surgically.

3. The Top Tier (Reasoning): Claude Sonnet 4 still leads. GPT-5 is close but its costs are volatile. No client migrations till cost and latencies stabilize.

Database AI Suite - v4 (DATS-4) is live. It's an open-source full-stack tool for natural language to SQL applications. 

Live Apps. Source Code. Full 49-page Field Guide. All Available now.

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Path: Database AI & SQL Apps