How Much to Run AI
Know what your AI will actually cost to run.
How Much to Run AI launched on August 7, 2026 with 6 votes, #1,590 of 23,274 launches that month and more than 75% of that year's launches.
What it does
"Can we self-host this model, and how much?" One number never ends the discussion. Pick a model (KIMI, GLM, DeepSeek…) and quantization, choose on-prem or cloud, set assumptions, and get a VRAM-matched hardware plan plus a monthly cost split. Every result shows its price sources and assumptions, refreshed on a regular schedule and never made up. Share one URL so the team debates the same inputs. A planning estimate, not a quote.
Estimate what it costs to self-host an LLM. Compare GPU, cloud rental, electricity and operations budgets for open models with this calculator.
Pick an open-weight LLM such as Kimi, GLM, DeepSeek or Qwen, then compare the cost to run an LLM on owned hardware or rented GPUs. This total includes only the electricity for the whole machine during the hours entered. Equipment purchase, depreciation, labor and cloud rental are excluded. It replaces the ownership estimate; do not add the two electricity totals. Choose the currency on your electricity bill. Changing currency does not convert the rate; enter the new rate yourself. Enter measured average power for the entire system, including CPU, RAM and PSU losses. GPU TDP is not a whole-machine measurement. No extra PUE multiplier is applied. Enter elapsed running hours. Divide measured…from howmuchtorunai.com
Does a similar job
all alternatives →
- SFSan Francisco Compute – 512 H100s at <$2/hr for research and startups2023 · sfcompute.org · ▲727
Hey folks! We're Alex and Evan, and we're working on putting together a 512 H100 compute cluster for startups and researchers to train large generative models on. - it runs at the lowest possible margins (<$2.00/hr per H100) - designed for bursty training runs, so you can take say 128 H100s for a week - you don’t need to commit to multiple years of compute or pay for a year upfront Big labs like OpenAI and Deepmind have big clusters that support this kind of bursty allocation for their researchers, but startups so far have had to get very small clusters on very long term contracts, wait…
- SSsllm – Split a GPU node with other developers, unlimited tokensApr 2026 · sllm.cloud · ▲188
Running DeepSeek V3 (685B) requires 8×H100 GPUs which is about $14k/month. Most developers only need 15-25 tok/s. sllm lets you join a cohort of developers sharing a dedicated node. You reserve a spot with your card, and nobody is charged until the cohort fills. Prices start at $5/mo for smaller models. The LLMs are completely private (we don't log any traffic). The API is OpenAI-compatible (we run vLLM), so you just swap the base URL. Currently offering a few models.
SelfHostLLM2025 · selfhostllm.org · ▲134A simple calculator that estimates how many concurrent requests your GPU can handle for a given LLM, with shareable results.

Compute Prices2025 · computeprices.com · ▲6Trying to get a better understanding for the economics of compute, started with a tracker. Most importantly, it needs more data. Anything else I should add?
More ai this month
the category →



Paintings by AI models: programs run through a simulation of oil paint.
AI · 20d ago · stillwet.art
PixVerse R2▲381A real-time world model you can explore and change
AI · 29d ago · world.pixverse.video

Source: Product Hunt launch ↗
Launched alongside, August 2026
the whole month →- TL
Life & fun · Aug 2026 · louisabraham.github.io

Clipto MCP▲655Hey HN, We recently built Clipto. It’s a tool that lets you search over terabytes of video, audio, and images on your computer, without relying on the cloud. Motivation: we probably all had this similar experience, we know a moment exists in a video or audio, but finding it takes hours scrubbing the timeline. You can send all the media to process in the cloud, but it’s slow, expensive and raises privacy concerns. So we decided to build our own on-device media search engine. How it works (high level): 1. We ingest video, audio, image; normalize formats via ffmpeg; run content analysis to…
Work · Aug 2026 · clipto.com

Hello HN! I found that picking out plausible but diverse skin tones for my digital art and game development projects was kind of difficult, and I got curious about if there was a way to define a color space that made it easy. I've built a color picker and procedural generation algorithm based on the space as well as a bunch of other fun js features and demos throughout the page that use the equations. If you find it interesting, I have lots of explanations of how I built it and what properties the space has. The methodology might be a bit shaky, but hopefully the result is as helpful for…
Life & fun · Aug 2026 · toneyalexander.github.io

Astute▲606Automate your B2B brand going viral, with new media creators
AI · Aug 2026 · company-app.joinastute.com