Research & Insights
Compute economics, pricing index reports, and self-host vs API cost studies.
Research
Real-World Cost of Hosting a 70B LLM: Spot Pricing vs API Breakeven Analysis
Self-hosting Llama 3.3 70B FP8 on a single H100 SXM5 ($1.89/hr spot) or 2x RTX 4090 ($0.80/hr INT4) breaks even with token APIs (~$0.60-$0.90 per 1M blended tokens) at approximately 3.2 million tokens per day (~37 tokens/second continuous load). Below this threshold, managed serverless APIs are more cost-effective; above it, self-hosting yields up to 68% monthly infrastructure savings.
💰 1x H100 SXM5 spot: $1.89/hr | 2x RTX 4090 INT4: $0.80/hr — breakeven at ~3.2M tokens/day vs API blended avg $0.65/M