Self-Host vs Cloud AI Cost Calculator

Enter your monthly LLM usage and pick a GPU rig. See exactly when owning your hardware beats renting cloud APIs — the break-even month, the 3-year total cost, and how much you keep.

🔒 100% in-browser — nothing you enter is uploaded

1. Your monthly usage

Avg prompt size per request.
Avg reply length per request.
Total calls across your app.
The frontier-API price you're comparing against. Prices verified June 2026.

2. The rig you'd own & run it on

Up-front hardware cost + sustained power draw.
US avg ~$0.16; check your bill.
Inference duty cycle, not idle.
Rent — Cloud API
$0
per month, at your usage
  • Up-front cost$0
  • 3-year total$0
Own — Self-Hosted
$0
per month, electricity only
  • Up-front hardware$0
  • 3-year total$0
GPU rig Hardware Power / mo Break-even 3-yr savings vs cloud

Cloud prices per 1M tokens, standard (non-cached, non-batch) tier, verified June 2026 — confirm live rates at OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, DeepSeek. Hardware costs are approximate MSRP (street prices vary); power is typical sustained draw under inference. This is a cost model — it assumes a local open model (Llama / DeepSeek / Qwen) covers the work; throughput and quality differ from frontier models, which is the gap cost-aware routing closes.

Own the floor. Rent only the ceiling.

The math above is the whole ABUZ8 thesis: run everything you can on hardware you own, and pay a cloud API only for the few calls a local model can't clear. QADIR OS makes that decision automatically, per request — sovereign by default, cloud only when it has to be.

✓ You're on the list. We'll be in touch.

Owning vs renting your AI compute

Is self-hosting an LLM cheaper than cloud APIs?

It depends entirely on volume. A GPU rig is a big fixed cost up front plus electricity; cloud APIs are pay-per-token with nothing down. Below a break-even usage, cloud wins; above it, owning wins and the gap compounds every month. The calculator above finds that exact crossover for your numbers — and it will tell you honestly when cloud is the cheaper call.

How is the break-even month calculated?

Break-even month = hardware cost ÷ (monthly cloud spend − monthly electricity). If your running power cost is higher than what you'd spend on cloud, owning never pays off at that volume and the tool says so. Over three years, the 3-year total compares all-in ownership (hardware + power) against cumulative cloud bills.

Will a local model match a frontier cloud model?

Open models such as Llama, DeepSeek and Qwen are strong, but not always equal to a frontier model on the hardest tasks. The cost-smart pattern is to run everything locally and escalate to a cloud model only when local output misses your quality bar — which is exactly what QADIR OS automates with cost-aware routing.

Is my data sent anywhere?

No. This calculator runs entirely in your browser. Nothing you enter is uploaded, logged, or stored.