Tech & Energy
Self-Hosted LLM Cost Calculator
Open-source models on rented GPUs can be cheaper than APIs at high volume — but only if you keep the GPU busy.
Break-even tokens/mo
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- Monthly self-hosted cost
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- Max tokens/mo
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- Verdict
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FAQ
When does self-hosting win? +
When you can keep GPUs >50% utilized 24/7. Below that, API beats GPU rental on pure cost — plus you skip the DevOps burden.
Quantization helps? +
AWQ/GPTQ to 4-bit can fit a 70B model on a single H100 instead of two — that halves your hourly rate.