RAG Pipeline Total Cost
Embed + Vector DB + LLM + Re-rank — all in one
📚 Learn more — how it works, FAQ & guide Click to expand
Learn more — how it works, FAQ & guide
Click to expand
RAG Pipeline Total Cost Calculator
RAG (Retrieval Augmented Generation) cost = embeddings (one-time + delta) + vector storage + LLM call + optional re-rank. This calculator adds it all up so you see the real bill.
How to use this tool
- 1
Size your corpus
How many documents × avg tokens per doc?
- 2
Set query workload
Queries/month, top-K, optional re-ranker.
- 3
See total stack cost
Embeddings + vector DB + LLM + re-rank monthly.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does a vector DB really cost?
Pinecone serverless: ~$0.33/M vectors stored + $4/M queries. Weaviate Cloud: ~$25/month per 1M vectors. Chroma self-hosted: compute only. Costs blur at 100M+ vectors.
Do I need a re-ranker?
Cohere Rerank ($1/1K queries) boosts retrieval quality 20–40%. Worth it if your final-answer quality depends on top-3 chunks. Skip for casual chatbots.
Embedding model choice?
OpenAI text-embedding-3-small ($0.02/M tokens) is the default. Voyage and Cohere often beat it on domain text but cost 2–3×.
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100% Privacy. This tool runs entirely in your browser. Your data is never uploaded to any server.