The original title is about self-hosting LLMs vs APIs and the break-even math. Let me rewrite this to be punchy and under 12 words.

Short summary

The self-hosting vs API decision for LLMs collapses to one question: at your sustained token volume, does the fixed GPU cost drop below per-token API charges? Key inputs include token volume, input-output ratio, quality tier (open vs frontier), GPU utilisation, and the often-forgotten ops overhead of 10-20 engineer hours monthly. Regulated data constraints can override the math entirely, making self-hosting mandatory regardless of cost.

• •Break-even point is where fixed GPU cost drops below per-token API charges at sustained volume
• •Ops overhead (10-20 senior engineer hours/month) is the biggest hidden cost of self-hosting
• •Regulated or confidential data requirements can make self-hosting mandatory regardless of cost math

Generated with AI, which can make mistakes.