Local LLM Hosting Cost Comparison 2026: Self-Host vs Cloud API — What You Actually Pay
10 Apr | 12 min read | AI & Intelligence
Running Llama 4 Scout 17B locally on an RTX 4090 costs ~$0.0003 per 1M tokens. At 100M tokens/month, the break-even on a $1,600 GPU is 2.6 months. Complete 2026 cost comparison for self-hosted AI vs cloud API — including hardware, energy, and hidden costs.
