What apps cost to run: API costs we measured in our own builds
The third-party services behind one app action cost a few rupees or a fraction of a cent: ₹7.86 for every Google Maps, SMS and storage call in one Pakka delivery, $0.00139 for an AI read of a visiting card, about $0.004 for an AI plant scan.
The expensive surprises come from code that calls an API more often than it needs to: Pakka's apps once made ~151 Directions calls per delivery where 1 was enough.
- measurements from 4 projects
- 14
- third-party cost of one consumer delivery (Pakka)
- ₹7.86
- per visiting card read by AI (the model we shipped)
- $0.00139
- Directions calls per delivery in Pakka's apps
- ~151 → 1
Updated 20 October 2026 · data from our own repositories, trackers and cost studies
The full table
| Project | Feature | Measure | Value | Model | Measured |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pakka | Route line during live tracking (Google Directions) | billable Directions calls per delivery, per open map | ~151 → 1 | — | 28 Aug 2026 |
| Pakka | Route line during live tracking (Google Directions) | Directions cost per trip on the driver's phone | ~₹77 (30-minute trip, about 180 calls) → ₹0.86 (1 call per leg, 2 legs) | — | 28 Aug 2026 |
| Pakka | One consumer delivery, every third-party service | third-party cost per cash-paid consumer trip | ₹7.86 | — | 28 Aug 2026 |
| Pakka | One business delivery, every third-party service | third-party cost per business trip | ₹3.07 | — | 28 Aug 2026 |
| Pakka | Business quote on real road distance (Google Directions) | Directions cost per business quote | ₹0.00 (straight-line distance × 1.25, no Google call) → ₹0.43 per route, cached per route | — | 28 Aug 2026 |
| LeafRanger | AI plant photo scan (vision) | cost per vision scan | $0.004 | small vision model | 4 Jul 2026 |
| LeafRanger | Herb chat assistant, turn on the larger model | cost per chat turn | $0.01 | larger chat model | 4 Jul 2026 |
| LeafRanger | Herb chat assistant, turn on the smaller model | cost per chat turn | $0.0004 | small chat model | 4 Jul 2026 |
| BogarInfra | Visiting-card photo to contact (AI vision read) | cost per card | $0.00139 | mid-size vision model (shipped) | 11 Sept 2026 |
| BogarInfra | Visiting-card photo to contact (AI vision read) | cost per card | $0.00066 | small vision model C | 11 Sept 2026 |
| BogarInfra | Visiting-card photo to contact (AI vision read) | cost per card | $0.00044 | small vision model B | 11 Sept 2026 |
| BogarInfra | Visiting-card photo to contact (AI vision read) | cost per card | $0.0002 | small vision model A (cheapest) | 11 Sept 2026 |
| AskForth | AI form building from a prompt (plan, build, cross-check, repair) | average tokens per form, primary model | 8,588 tokens per form | — | 22 Jul 2026 |
| AskForth | AI form building from a prompt (plan, build, cross-check, repair) | average tokens per form, cheaper model | 6,096 tokens per form | — | 22 Jul 2026 |
What is behind each row?
Pakka: billable Directions calls per delivery, per open map
Simulated 25-minute drive with a driver position every 10 seconds, replayed in a unit test. Before the fix both apps refetched the route on every 10-second throttle, and the server's Directions cache key (coordinates to about 1.1 m) missed on every call. After: one fetch per leg, and a refetch only when the driver is more than 150 m off the drawn line, at most once every 30 seconds.
Source: Pakka case study, project records, 28 Aug 2026.
Pakka: Directions cost per trip on the driver's phone
Before the fix every open map billed six Directions calls a minute, ₹2.58 a minute, and the driver's trip screen stays open for the whole delivery. Priced at ₹0.43 a call ($0.005 at ₹85 to the dollar, from Google's public rate card). Found and fixed on the same day.
Source: Pakka case study, project records, 28 Aug 2026.
Pakka: third-party cost per cash-paid consumer trip
- Pickup and drop address search (Google Places, 2 sessions): ₹2.90
- Route preview (Google Directions, Redis-cached): ₹0.43
- Map loads (Maps SDK, 4 × ₹0.60): ₹2.40
- Live-tracking route, driver (Directions, 1 per leg): ₹0.86
- Live-tracking route, customer (Directions, 1 per leg): ₹0.86
- Pickup and delivery SMS codes (MSG91, 2 × ₹0.20): ₹0.40
- Proof-of-delivery photo (S3): ₹0.01
- Driver matching (MongoDB $geoNear, no Google call): ₹0.00
One cash-paid booking traced through the code after the tracking fix. Google Maps is ₹7.45 of the ₹7.86; an online payment adds the payment-gateway fee. Unit prices are Google's and MSG91's public rates, which the study marks to be checked against a real bill. Replaces an earlier ₹6.14 that counted live tracking as ₹0.00.
Source: Pakka case study, project records, 28 Aug 2026.
Pakka: third-party cost per business trip
- Pickup and drop address search (none: coordinates arrive by API or a saved address): ₹0.00
- Route preview (none: no consumer map in the flow): ₹0.00
- Map loads, driver only (Maps SDK, 3 × ₹0.60): ₹1.80
- Live-tracking route, driver (Directions, 1 per leg): ₹0.86
- Live-tracking route, customer (none: the portal draws no map): ₹0.00
- Pickup and delivery SMS codes (MSG91, 2 × ₹0.20): ₹0.40
- Proof-of-delivery photo (S3): ₹0.01
- Driver matching (MongoDB $geoNear, no Google call): ₹0.00
The same trace for a Pakka for Business shipment. Nobody types an address and the portal's tracking board is built from our own database, so what is left is the cost of executing the delivery. Figures as of 28 Aug 2026; since 22 Sep 2026 a business quote also makes one cached Directions call per route (next row).
Source: Pakka case study, project records, 28 Aug 2026.
Pakka: Directions cost per business quote
Measured against 90 Bengaluru road routes, the straight-line factor under-charged on 72 of them; a 43-paise route call recovers ₹23–67 of fare. Business quotes have priced on real road distance in production since 22 Sep 2026.
Source: Pakka case study, project records, 28 Aug 2026.
LeafRanger: cost per vision scan
From the app's own token telemetry, which prices every AI call in micro-dollars against a per-model table; development figures, since LeafRanger is not yet in an app store. About 25,800 tokens per photo, because the small model counts an image as about 33 times the tokens the larger model does. A design note had estimated about $0.0001 per identification (a 100-token low-detail image), about 40 times too low.
Source: LeafRanger case study, project records, 4 Jul 2026.
LeafRanger: cost per chat turn
Development telemetry. A turn goes to the larger model when it carries a photo, runs past 220 characters, asks two or more questions, uses diagnostic words or follows 12 or more turns; other turns go to the small model. A photo turn makes two metered calls (an identification and the chat turn). This cost is why chat became a paid-plan feature on 4 Jul 2026.
Source: LeafRanger case study, project records, 4 Jul 2026.
LeafRanger: cost per chat turn
Development telemetry. One verified live turn on 1 Jul 2026 recorded 1,209 tokens in and 251 out: 332 micro-dollars ($0.000332). A turn on the larger model costs about 25 times as much.
Source: LeafRanger case study, project records, 4 Jul 2026.
BogarInfra: cost per card
The model we shipped. Each of 29 freely licensed card images was read once through the production code path, with no fallback: 21 of 29 usable as-is, on average 2,869 tokens in and 151 out and 2.4 s a card, $0.0403 for the whole run. A photo sent twice is matched by its SHA-256 hash and makes no model call.
Source: BogarInfra case study, project records, 11 Sept 2026.
BogarInfra: cost per card
Same bake-off, not shipped: 18 of 29 usable as-is, on average 2,370 tokens in and 145 out and 2.3 s a card, $0.0190 for the whole run.
Source: BogarInfra case study, project records, 11 Sept 2026.
BogarInfra: cost per card
Same bake-off, not shipped: 16 of 29 usable as-is, on average 3,863 tokens in and 130 out and 1.6 s a card, $0.0127 for the whole run.
Source: BogarInfra case study, project records, 11 Sept 2026.
BogarInfra: cost per card
Same bake-off, the cheapest of the four and not shipped: 17 of 29 usable as-is, on average 2,725 tokens in and 148 out and 2.0 s a card, $0.0057 for the whole run.
Source: BogarInfra case study, project records, 11 Sept 2026.
AskForth: average tokens per form, primary model
15-form benchmark (menus, bookings, quizzes, job applications, RSVPs and more): 15 of 15 built fully clean, with 54 model calls across the 15 forms. As with every build on this site, the model is not named.
Source: AskForth case study, project records, 22 Jul 2026.
AskForth: average tokens per form, cheaper model
Same 15-form benchmark: 14 of 15 built fully clean, with 37 model calls, using about 30% fewer tokens than the primary model. The provider is a configuration switch, so this is a choice rather than a rebuild. As with every build on this site, the model is not named.
Source: AskForth case study, project records, 22 Jul 2026.
How were these numbers measured?
- What counts
- Money paid to third parties per unit of a feature: map and route calls, AI tokens, SMS, storage. Not hosting, salaries or our fees.
- How it was measured
- From the projects' own tests, cost meters and studies: a replayed 25-minute drive for Pakka's route calls, a four-model bake-off on 29 freely licensed card images for BogarInfra, development telemetry for LeafRanger.
- Prices
- The providers' public rates as set in each project's code or cost study on the date shown, not a bill. Rates change: check them in our Maps and AI cost calculators.
- Models
- Described by role (small, larger, mid-size, shipped), never by name: we don't publish which model or vendor a build runs on. AskForth's rows give tokens, not dollars.
What doesn't this table show?
- Pakka's 151 → 1 counts the route calls the driver and customer apps make per delivery, measured in a replayed 25-minute drive. Maps calls made elsewhere in a trip are not part of that figure.
- Pakka's per-trip figures are estimates from the project's own cost study at Google's and MSG91's public rates. The study prices every mobile map load and treats every route as a basic Directions request, so a real bill can come out lower or higher.
- LeafRanger's AI figures are development telemetry, not production usage.
- Left out: projections (BogarInfra's backlog estimate, LeafRanger's per-user caps), costs superseded by later corrections (Pakka's earlier ₹6.14 a trip), AI cost figures our own products' case studies chose not to publish, and every client fee or price.
Questions about these numbers
How much does Google Maps cost per delivery in a delivery app?
In Pakka, a Porter-style delivery platform we built, every Google Maps call in one cash-paid consumer delivery came to about ₹7.45 of a ₹7.86 third-party total, priced at Google's rates. Most of it was address search and map loads, after a fix that cut the apps' route calls from about 151 per delivery to 1.
What does an AI vision call cost per image in a real app?
About $0.004 per plant-photo scan in LeafRanger, on a small vision model, measured in development. In BogarInfra's visiting-card scanner, the model we shipped came to $0.00139 per card, the most accurate of four models tested.
Is the cheapest AI model good enough for document scanning?
Not always. In BogarInfra's bake-off on 29 freely licensed card images, the cheapest model cost $0.0002 a card and read 17 of the 29 usable as-is; a mid-size model cost $0.00139 and read 21, so it is the one that shipped.
Why do API costs in an app grow faster than its users?
Usually because of code that repeats calls: refetching a route on a timer, geocoding the same address on every screen, or sending a whole conversation to an AI model on each turn. Pakka's route refetch billed six Directions calls a minute per open map before it was fixed.
Do these running costs include hosting?
No. The table covers metered third-party services per unit of a feature. Hosting, databases and app store memberships are fixed monthly costs that don't scale per delivery or per scan in the same way.
Use these numbers
To cite this table: CountryDevs, “CountryDevs measured running costs per feature”, countrydevs.com/running-costs, updated 20 October 2026.