Self-Hosted vs Cloud AI: The Real Cost Comparison

The Hidden Cost of Cloud AI

Cloud AI pricing looks reasonable at first. Then your usage grows. A single AI voice agent processing 100 calls/day burns 2-3 million tokens. Add analysis and automation, and you hit 10-50M tokens/day.

At GPT-4o pricing, 50M tokens/day costs $15,000-$45,000/month.

The Self-Hosted Alternative

Starter: Mac Mini M4 Pro, $3,000, 10-20 concurrent users. Professional: Dell PowerEdge T550, $8,000-$12,000, 50-100 users. Enterprise: Dell R760 + NVIDIA L40, $25,000-$40,000, 500+ users.

Ongoing costs: $50-$200/month for electricity and maintenance.

Break-Even Math

Cloud AI for a 50-person company: $180,000-$540,000/year. Self-hosted: $13,200 year one, $1,200/year after. Break-even: Month 1.

The EndlessRise Approach

We use intelligent routing. Routine tasks (80%) go to self-hosted models. Complex reasoning (15%) to premium models. Specialized tasks (5%) to cloud APIs. Result: enterprise AI at 10-20% of cloud costs.

Get Your Cost Analysis

Book a strategy call and we'll map your AI spend and show you the ROI timeline.