{
  "schema_version": "1.0",
  "surface_type": "guide_answer",
  "guide_id": "ai-docs-assistant-cost-per-user",
  "question": "How do I estimate docs assistant cost per active user?",
  "canonical_url": "https://www.unitcostai.com/guides/ai-docs-assistant-cost-per-user",
  "related_tool_url": "https://www.unitcostai.com/tools/rag-retrieval-cost",
  "formula": "cost_per_user_month = (requests_per_user_month * variable_cost_per_request) + refresh_share_per_user_month",
  "assumptions": [
    "Variable cost per request already includes generation, retrieval, reranking, vector, cache, and infra terms",
    "Corpus refresh is treated as a monthly fixed term that must be amortized across active users",
    "Retrieval depth and chunking are measured from production-like requests"
  ],
  "example": "60 requests per user at 0.031 plus 0.28 monthly refresh share gives 2.14 cost per active user-month."
}