The Attic Standard Clause
Five separate drivers move the price of AI inference, each on its own schedule and in either direction. The Primer, § 4.3 defines each one; here each is measured with this week’s figures. Part Two shows how the clause carries them to the invoice, within a cap and a floor.
The same models cost than in May.
The index compares each model with itself from week to week, so it measures the price of models already on sale. This week, of the output indexes are below their May level. A price held at the May level does not follow these moves.
On a $10 million contract: a price held at the May level is now a year the market.
Vendors made lasting price changes in thirteen weeks: reductions and increases.
The median change is , and one change in four is or more. Increases were fewer but larger, with a median of against for reductions. No buyer can know in advance which vendor will reprice, or when.
On a $10 million contract: a change on a model that takes $1 million of that spend moves its cost by a year.
In the last thirteen weeks, vendors added listings and withdrew .
A listing is one model on sale at one vendor. That is about added and withdrawn a week, against listings on sale. The index keeps measuring the models that remain.
On a $10 million contract: a price schedule that names specific models goes out of date as those models are withdrawn and replaced.
Since May, cached input prices have fallen as fast as standard input.
Cached input is the lower rate for text a model has already processed. It is now offered on of models, up from in May, at a median of below the standard input rate. A contract that fixes one rate does not follow the components that move most.
On a $10 million contract, half of it cached input: the cached half is now a year the market.
One model costs as much at the highest-priced vendor as at the lowest.
The model is , the one sold by the most vendors this week. Across all models sold by more than one vendor, the highest price is typically the lowest, and or more for one model in four.
On a $10 million contract: one vendor’s list price shows what that vendor charges, not what the market charges.
The contract price moves in the same proportion as the benchmark, within limits agreed at signing.
The clause keeps the structure buyers already use, a commitment and a discount, and changes only the reference: from one vendor’s price list to the benchmark, with any discount kept as a percentage. A contract can also start from the market price at signing, with a discount or premium fixed as an amount per unit while the benchmark moves. The full wording for both forms is in the model clause at the end of this page.
Each way of buying inference today ties the price to one vendor, where the clause ties it to the market.
The price moves only with the benchmark, never beyond the cap and the floor.
The table shows how each volatility driver reaches the buyer, without the clause and under it.
A substitution right moves volume to a newer model without reopening the contract.
In the last thirteen weeks, vendors added listings and withdrew .
Each simulated contract starts on June 1, 2026, with May 2026, the indexes’ base month, as its base in Schedule A. They differ in size, index and terms, as different buyers would choose, and each is settled every week on the published figures. The figures scale in proportion to any contract size.
The market price for the whole term, with the cost of any increase limited in advance.
Pricing terms both parties can check, agreed once for the life of the contract.