Value analysis of the old Ollama Pro sub model vs the new per-token model (from 50 days of real usage)

Why I have this data: one Pro account kept hitting limits, so I run three Pro subs through 9router, a self-hosted router that sits between my coding tools and ollama cloud. It spreads requests across the accounts and logs every call — which account, which model, how many tokens. From Jun 26 to Aug 14 (50 days, all on the old plan): 41,974 requests, 3.62B input tokens, 17.6M output tokens. Average month by model (50 days scaled to 30; prices are Ollama's own published rates — the same rates the new monthly credits are spent at): Model Reqs/mo Input tok/mo Output tok/mo /mo /mo per sub % of value glm-5.2 20,787 1,834,787,425 8,317,883 2,605.30 868.43 90.1% glm-5 2,866 238,664,085 1,068,830 242.08 80.69 8.4% deepseek-v4-flash 1,528 97,647,464 1,154,447 44.49 14.83 1.5% other (gemini, gemma) 4 498,520 3,834 0.26 0.09 0.0% TOTAL 25,184 2,171,597,489 10,544,994 2,892.13 964.04 100% So one 20 sub was moving about 964 of tokens a month at Ollama's own prices. That is the size of the gap the new pricing has to close. The big unknown: caching. The new rates charge far less for prompt text the model has already seen ("cached input": 0.26 instead of 1.40 for glm-5.2). Logs show zero caching, so the numbers below start from that worst case. Coding-agent products typically get 70–92% of prompt text served from cache; whether Ollama's servers do the same, I can't measure from here. Share of prompt text from cache /mo (3 subs) /mo per sub × the new 60 credit none (measured basis) 2,892 964 16× 70% 1,265 422 7× 85% 916 305 5× 95% 684 228 4× Output tokens are only 1.4% of the bill, so caching is what moves these numbers. Method: token counts come from the router's per-request logs. Prices from ollama.com/pricing as of Sep 2, identical to the model makers' own prices where both exist; three models Ollama no longer lists (8.4% of the value) priced at maker/market rates, worst case +3.3%. "Value" means what the tokens would cost at those prices, not what I paid — the old subs were flat 20/month. Conclusion (estimate, not measurement): if caching on Ollama's side works anything like it does for other coding tools, the real monthly value probably lands between the middle rows — roughly 230–420 per sub, or about 4–7× the new 60 credit. With no caching at all it's 964, about 16×. Either way, usage that the old flat $20 plan covered in full would blow past the new plan's included credit several times over, and the rest becomes pay-as-you-go. Scale the tables to your own usage before concluding anything for yourself. submitted by /u/SweatyActuator2119 [link] [comments]

Source: r/ollama | 2026-09-02