How do I calculate costs for GPT-4 Turbo usage and file retrieval in the ASSISTANT API?

Below is a concise breakdown addressing your points:

Pricing Components

1. File Costs vs. Model Costs

   • The pricing model you’re using splits the daily cost into two parts:
     • File Costs: Calculated as fileSize (in GB) × $0.20.
     • Model Costs: Based on token usage (e.g., input tokens at $0.01 per 1k tokens and output tokens at $0.03 per 200 tokens).
   • Without Retrieval Enabled: If you aren’t using any retrieval functionality, then indeed your costs come only from model usage (and any file costs associated with files directly attached to the assistant). With the free retrieval period (until 01/12/2024), you wouldn’t see additional retrieval charges.

2. Understanding the Retrieval Tool Pricing (Point 2)

   • The documentation states that when you enable the retrieval tool, each unique file attached to a message in a run (or included with the assistant) incurs a charge on a per-GB, per-assistant, per-day basis.
   • For example:
     • If your thread has 10 messages and each message has 1 unique file (10 total unique files), each file’s data size contributes to the daily retrieval cost.
     • Essentially, the applied retrieval fee is based on the total storage (in GB) of all unique files processed during that run and then charged at $0.20/GB per assistant per day.
   • Impact for Your Setup:
     • If you are not using retrieval (or if the current runs are not retrieval-enabled), then you simply incur model costs (and any file costs as per your file pricing model).
     • However, if you enable retrieval on a run with your 20 files—even if spread over multiple messages—the retrieval cost would consider the cumulative data from those unique files. This adds an extra charge based on the total GB of unique files attached during that run, on top of your usual model costs.

Key Takeaways

• Without retrieval enabled:
  Your costs remain determined by your model/tokens consumption (and file costs if you’re directly attaching files to the assistant outside of retrieval context).

• With retrieval enabled:

  • You will incur an extra charge for each unique file involved in that run.
  • Even if a file is sent one time per message, the charge applies per file on a per-assistant per-day basis.
  • This means that if a run includes multiple messages with unique files, the retrieval costs accumulate based on the total GB of those files, separate from your model costs.

Hopefully, this provides some clarity on how the retrieval pricing works and how it might impact you given your current setup. If your usage doesn’t heavily involve retrieval-enabled runs, your current charges would be primarily model-based.