#cost

Egress $3K, logging $2K, on-call eng time $8K—the costs nobody budgeted for add up to more than you expect.

GPU cost is just the beginning. Egress, logging, on-call—add 40% to your compute estimate for the real number.

The same model costs different amounts on different providers. Smart routing between them can cut your bill by 30%.

$4/hour vs $10/hour sounds great. But conversion cost, ecosystem limitations, and operational overhead change the math.

When does self-hosting break even? Here's the formula, the variables, and the 6-month reality check most teams skip.

Everyone wants to self-host LLMs to save money. Most shouldn't. Here's the math on when it actually makes sense.

5% of requests fail. You retry 3 times. That's not 5% overhead. It's 15%. And under pressure, it gets much worse.

By the time you see the invoice, the damage is done. Real-time spend monitoring catches runaway costs before they compound.

Your LLM bill is one number. Your product has twenty features. Without cost attribution, you're optimizing in the dark.

Your API has rate limits. Your database has connection limits. Your LLM endpoints should have token limits. Here's how to add them without breaking production.