Cost Estimator

Cost Estimator (Pre-flight)

Before user commits 30 min + $2.40 to /article, show them the estimate.

When to invoke

• /cost-estimate — defaults to listicle 6000w
• /cost-estimate listicle 6000
• /cost-estimate --brief workspace/abc/brief.json
• User asks: "how much for a pillar page?", "what does an article cost?", "is this gonna be over budget?"
• Auto-trigger via L1 SKILL.md before phase-research starts (mandatory pre-flight)

How to invoke

# By format + word count
python -m scripts._core.cost_estimator --format listicle --words 6000

# From an existing brief.json
python -m scripts._core.cost_estimator --brief workspace/abc123/brief.json --json

# With cheaper config
python -m scripts._core.cost_estimator \
    --format how-to-guide --words 4500 \
    --images 2 --image-quality medium --batch

# Machine-readable
python -m scripts._core.cost_estimator --format pillar-page --json

Output (human-readable)

━━━ /article cost estimate ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
  Format: listicle (target 6000 words)
  Images: 4 × high-quality 1024² (batch)
  Drafter / pipeline model: claude-opus-4-7 / claude-opus-4-7
  Cache hit rate assumed: 30%

Breakdown:
  Research (Tavily ×8 adv search + 12 extracts): $0.1664
  Drafting (6000w via claude-opus-4-7, 21,000 in + 8,400 out + 9,000 cached): $0.3360
  Pipeline stages (13 stages, 124,000 in + 13,500 out via claude-opus-4-7): $0.6469
  Images (4 × gpt-image-2 high 1024² batch): $0.4220
  Overhead buffer (10%): $0.1571

  TOTAL:         $1.73
  80% range:    $1.30 – $2.25

  ✓ Within budget.

Typical costs by format (rough)

| Format | Words | Est. cost (high+batch) | |---|---|---| | news-analysis | 1500 | ~$1.40 | | definition | 3500 | ~$2.00 | | how-to-guide | 4500 | ~$2.40 | | product-review | 4500 | ~$2.40 | | comparison | 4500 | ~$2.50 | | case-study | 5500 | ~$3.10 | | listicle | 6000 | ~$1.73 | | pillar-page | 6500 | ~$3.40 |

Levers to lower cost

1. Use Batch API for images — 50% off (default; toggle with --no-batch)
2. Lower image quality — medium cuts image cost 4×, low cuts 35×
3. Fewer images — --images 2 instead of 4
4. Cheaper drafter model — --drafter-model claude-sonnet-4-6 cuts ~60%
5. Cheaper pipeline model — --pipeline-model claude-haiku-4-5 cuts ~80%
6. Smaller word count — costs scale ~linearly with words

Budget check semantics

approved — Within per-article + daily limits needs_approval — Above 50% of per-article budget OR 80% daily blocked — Exceeds per-article OR would push daily over limit

If blocked, suggest lowering image quality OR shortening word count OR raising budget in ~/.xuanran-seo/config.yaml.

What this skill does NOT do

• ❌ Actually run /article (that's L1 SKILL.md)
• ❌ Calibrate estimates from past runs (future closed-loop work — Step P2-真)
• ❌ Lock in pricing (estimates can be ±25%)

Pre-flight integration

L1 SKILL.md should call this BEFORE phase-research kicks off:

python -m scripts._core.cost_estimator --brief workspace/$TASK/brief.json --json

If total_usd > per_article_limit: pause and ask user before continuing.

Source & license

This open-source skill is cataloged on AgentStack and links to its original source — we do not rehost the code.

• Author: XuanRanL
• Source: XuanRanL/loamwright-SEO-Skill
• License: Apache-2.0
• Homepage: https://loamwrightseo.com

Install and usage instructions live in the source repository linked above.