The original title is "Where Does RAG Actually Cost You Money? (Episode 2)"

Short summary

Document extraction is the first hidden cost center in a RAG pipeline — a free parser silently corrupts tables, columns, and diagrams, producing wrong answers that drive expensive LLM retries. The real bill shows up not on extraction but on repeated LLM calls, support tickets, and hallucination rates. Paying for faithful extraction upfront can be cheaper than absorbing 2-3x retry costs downstream.

• •Free parsers silently corrupt document structure, capping RAG quality before retrieval even starts
• •Corrupted extraction drives 2-3x LLM retry costs that appear on the wrong budget line
• •Paying for quality extraction upfront can reduce total cost per successfully-answered question

Generated with AI, which can make mistakes.