Tools · Enterprise AI cost
GPT-5 Pro ROI calculator
A worked methodology for deciding whether GPT-5 Pro's $200/month tier repays for your enterprise. Used alongside the AM-003 Holding-up claim on tiered-subscription economics.
Tool status. This page previously lived as a standalone HTML calculator under
/wp-content/uploads/ during the WordPress era. It is being rebuilt as a first-class tool on the new publication. In the meantime, the methodology below is the same one the calculator used — you can work it on a spreadsheet in under ten minutes.The five inputs
- Query volume per seat per month. How many distinct AI prompts does the user run that would benefit from premium routing? Most enterprise users: 10–40.
- "Very hard" fraction. What percentage of those queries genuinely need deeper reasoning (vs. summarisation, drafting, formatting)? Honest answer for most roles: 5–15%.
- Delta value per hard query. What is one correctly-reasoned answer worth vs. a decent-but-shallow one? Depends entirely on role — a junior analyst might be $5, a senior partner might be $500.
- Seat cost delta. GPT-5 Pro at $200/month vs. a Plus seat at $20/month = $180 monthly delta per seat, or $2,160 per year.
- Alternative-tool substitutability. Would a Claude Opus 4.x or Gemini Advanced seat cover the same workload? If yes, the true delta is smaller.
The break-even expression
Monthly ROI is positive when:
(Queries × Hard-fraction × Delta-value) > $180
Concretely: at 20 queries/month × 10% hard × $X/query = $180 break-even, you need $90 of value per hard query. Most seats do not clear this bar. Senior roles with high-leverage decisions do.
The Holding-up claim this anchors
This methodology supports AM-003 — GPT-5 Pro vs Enterprise AI Agents: the $200/month premium routing only repays for the top decile of "very hard" queries. The claim is reviewed every 30 days because pricing-tier claims age fast. See the current verdict at /holding/?claim=AM-003.