Local LLM vs API break-even calculator

← All tools· Inference cost calculator· VRAM calculator

Cheaper to buy a GPU and run local, or pay per token? Plug in hardware cost, power draw, daily output volume, and an API price — get monthly costs and a break-even timeline.

~~~

Hardware

Electricity

Usage

Compute time: h/day ( h/mo at this volume).

API comparison

Output-token pricing only. Compare with the inference cost calculatorfor full input+output workloads. snapshot.

~~~

Local / month

Hardware amort.
Electricity

API / month

output tokens/mo

Monthly savings vs API:

Show your work

Hardware amortization

Electricity

API cost

Caveats: local open-weight models still trail frontier APIs on hard tasks. Your time maintaining drivers, quantizations, and crashes is a real cost this sheet ignores. API prices keep falling. Privacy, offline access, and zero per-token anxiety are non-dollar benefits that may dominate the decision — use theVRAM calculator to confirm the model actually fits your hardware first.

~~~

About this tool

This is a rough TCO sketch: amortized hardware plus electricity for the hours you are actually generating tokens, compared to a single output-token API rate. It does not model input tokens, batch APIs, or subscription plans.

~~~

Read more