What Local AI Actually Costs

Cost is where AI conversations get vague, so this section refuses to be. Every figure here is a range, every range is built from cited, dated assumptions, and the worksheet shows you each line item rather than producing a magic number. If a figure's verification date is old, distrust it and check the source.

The honest headline: local AI trades an ongoing subscription for mostly one-time costs. A machine capable of running useful models sits in the same price range as a good office workstation. Whether that trade wins for you depends on how many people would use it and how heavily — which is exactly what the worksheet computes.

What You'll Find Here

• The transparent cost worksheet — your team size and usage → a three-year comparison, line by line
• The cost breakdown guide — a worked example with the arithmetic shown
• Cloud API vs. on-prem — when each genuinely wins (cloud wins are real; we say so)