Indie devs & vibe coders
Sanity-check a build before you pour weeks into it.
About Forecost
Know the AI cost before you commit.
AI-assisted development changed how fast software gets built, but it didn't come with a budget line. Forecost answers the three questions nobody could before: what it costs to build, maintain, and run.
3
cost layers you actually pay
build · maintenance · runtime
$0
prices we invent
every figure is computed, not guessed
~10 min
from idea to a defensible budget
describe it, answer a few questions
Our story
Built by people who felt the exact pain it solves.
We're a small team of builders, not a faceless company, and we built Forecost because we kept hitting the same wall on our own projects. AI-assisted development made shipping fast, but every budget conversation turned into guesswork. How many Cursor seats? What will the API bill be once real users show up? What does a month of maintenance actually cost? Too often we only found out when the invoice landed.
So we built the tool we wished we'd had: one that turns a rough idea into an honest, defensible budget in around 10 minutes. Describe your project (or answer a short structured wizard), and Forecost analyzes the scope, asks a handful of adaptive follow-up questions, and runs everything through a deterministic calculation engine, producing build, maintenance, and runtime AI cost ranges, plus a concrete purchase recommendation (subscriptions vs. API usage vs. hybrid).
How we keep it honest
Transparent where it counts.
AI understands, never prices
AI extracts scope, modules, complexity, and risks. It never invents a number; every dollar comes from a transparent, deterministic formula.
Sourced, dated pricing
Tool pricing (Cursor, Claude Code, Copilot, Windsurf) and model API rates (Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, DeepSeek) are tracked with a source and a last-verified date.
Ranges, not false precision
Every estimate shows low / expected / high, never one misleadingly exact number, and lists the assumptions, risks, and missing info behind it.
Who it's for
Different teams, same budget problem.
Anyone who has to put a number on AI-driven development before the work starts.
Agencies
Quote AI-powered projects with numbers you can defend to a client.
Teams
Budget ongoing AI tooling and runtime API spend before launch.
Know the number before the invoice does.
Plan build, maintenance, and runtime costs before you commit.
Get my free estimate