Most AI tools tell you what a month costs. Almost none tell you what a job costs. So here are twelve jobs, each one run once on Else, each one with the receipt and a link to the finished work so you can judge the result for yourself.
Every run below used the Smart engine. The price is the amount the receipt shows for that run, with that engine. Pick a different engine and the same job costs a different amount, which is exactly why the two are always listed together.
The twelve jobs
|
What was asked for |
Engine |
Time |
Cost |
See the result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
A 12-month cash flow forecast spreadsheet for a bakery |
Smart |
about 90 seconds |
$0.375 |
|
|
A four-day Kyoto itinerary planned around dinner, delivered as a PDF |
Smart |
about 90 seconds |
$0.452333 |
|
|
Messy expense lines turned into a working spreadsheet workbook |
Smart |
about 90 seconds |
$0.260554 |
|
|
An invoice template for a bookkeeping service |
Smart |
about 90 seconds |
$0.209215 |
|
|
A pitch deck for a coffee roastery |
Smart |
about 90 seconds |
$0.203537 |
|
|
Six quote templates for plumbing jobs |
Smart |
about 60 seconds |
$0.148375 |
|
|
A dog-walking price list as a one-page website |
Smart |
about 60 seconds |
$0.147935 |
|
|
A scam-text warning sheet to print and stick by the kettle |
Smart |
about 75 seconds |
$0.138613 |
|
|
Three ways out of a shared support inbox, written as advice |
Smart |
about 90 seconds |
$0.136616 |
|
|
A client proposal for a catalogue redesign, as a Word document |
Smart |
about 60 seconds |
$0.131122 |
|
|
An onboarding deck for a new hire's first day |
Smart |
about 60 seconds |
$0.13012 |
|
|
A six-week lesson plan on fractions for an elementary class |
Smart |
15 seconds |
$0.028452 |
Add the twelve up and you get $2.36 for twelve finished pieces of work on the Smart engine. The most expensive one on the list was the Kyoto itinerary. The cheapest was the lesson plan, which needed no file at all, just a plan written out in the chat.
What the receipt actually tells you
Each link opens the run as it happened: the request, the steps, the file that came out, and the receipt at the bottom. Three things on that receipt are worth reading before you decide anything.
The engine. The receipt names the engine that did the work. If it says Smart, that is the engine you were charged for. There is no quiet swap to a weaker one halfway through.
The time. Most of these took around a minute and a half. The spreadsheet jobs sat at the longer end, because building a workbook with working formulas is more steps than writing a page of text.
The total, to the fraction of a cent. A price like $0.148375 looks odd next to the round numbers subscriptions use. It is odd because it is the real amount, not a rounded promise.
Why files cost more than answers
Look at the two cheapest rows. The lesson plan and the support inbox advice both came back as text in the chat, and both cost well under fifteen cents on Smart. The jobs that produced a spreadsheet, a PDF or a deck cost more, usually two to four times more, because the work does not stop at the first draft. The file has to be built, checked, and handed back in a form you can open.
That difference is the honest version of "it depends". It does not depend on how much you use the app in a month. It depends on what you asked for.
How to read this for your own work
If your week includes a quote, a proposal, a plan or a spreadsheet, the rows above are a fair guide to what one of those costs on the Smart engine. If you choose Fast for a simple job, expect less. If you choose Max for something hard, expect more, and expect the receipt to say so.
The point is not that any one number is small. The point is that you see the number, next to the engine, next to the result, every single time. Browse more finished jobs with their receipts in the gallery.