Open-Source vs Frontier TCO Calculator
Compare the monthly cost of self-hosting an open-source model against paying a frontier API, and find the break-even token volume where one overtakes the other. Change any number. This is a compute-cost estimator with every assumption on the table, not a single magic break-even figure, because no honest one exists.
Free version. This tool models compute economics only. It does not include data egress, power and electricity, fine-tuning, operations headcount, or the idle-GPU penalty on bursty traffic. Those understate the self-host total, so treat the result as a floor and add them separately. The paid version handles the full picture.
Default prices verified June 30, 2026. Vendor list prices change often, so verify each provider's pricing page before you budget.
The Calculator
Enter your monthly token volume and the two prices that drive the decision: what a frontier API charges per million tokens, and what your own hardware costs to run. The tool computes both monthly bills, the break-even volume, and a plain verdict for your numbers.
Put governance around how your team uses AI. The AI Acceptable Use Policy: a deploy-ready template that sets the rules for AI use.
Your purchase helps keep our hubs free to read.
How It Works
The math is deliberately simple and fully exposed, so you can audit it. Three lines drive the result:
- Blended frontier price per 1M = input price times input share, plus output price times output share. The output share is the percentage you set.
- Frontier monthly cost = your monthly volume (in millions) times the blended frontier price.
- Self-host monthly cost = fixed monthly cost, plus your monthly volume times the marginal price.
The break-even volume is the fixed self-host cost divided by the price gap per million tokens: break-even = fixed ÷ (blended frontier price − self-host marginal price). Below that volume the API is cheaper. Above it, the cluster starts to pay for itself. If the self-host marginal price is not lower than the blended frontier price, there is no break-even and the API wins at every volume. For the full editorial reasoning behind these drivers, read the Open Source vs Frontier TCO breakdown.
What This Free Tool Excludes
Honesty is the whole point of this calculator. The number it gives you is a compute floor. Everything below is real cost that it does not model, and each item tends to push the self-host total up.
- Fixed monthly self-host cost (GPU or instance)
- Marginal self-host cost per million tokens
- Frontier input and output pricing, blended by your token mix
- Break-even token volume and a monthly delta
- Data egress and bandwidth
- Power and electricity for on-premise hardware
- Fine-tuning and training cost
- Operations headcount (ML ops, oversight, on-call)
- The 60 to 80 percent idle-GPU penalty on bursty traffic
- Caching discounts, spot pricing, and a failure-risk reserve
If your traffic is low or spiky, the idle penalty alone can erase the self-hosting advantage this tool shows, because you pay for the GPU even while it sits unused. If you have no dedicated ML operations staff, add a risk reserve for the build, maintenance, and oversight cost of running the stack yourself.
NVIDIA, H100, and A100 are trademarks of NVIDIA Corporation. Claude is a trademark of Anthropic. GPT is a trademark of OpenAI. Gemini is a trademark of Google. DeepSeek, Llama, Qwen, and Mistral are trademarks of their respective owners. All product names and brand identifiers are the property of their respective owners. Tech Jacks Solutions has no commercial relationship with the vendors named. This tool is editorially independent and its default cost figures are sourced, not estimated.