The LLM Cost Trap—and the Playbook to Escape It: Slash AI Expenses by 90% While Boosting Performance
mindmap
root((LLM Cost Reality))
Four Cost Pillars
Infrastructure
GPU Hours
VRAM & Storage
Network Transfer
Operations
Monitoring
24/7 Support
Autoscaling
Development
Engineering Salaries
Fine-tuning
Security Reviews
Opportunity
Slow Response Times
Vendor Lock-in
Lost Agility
Hidden Expenses
Cold Start Delays
Failed Request Billing
Model Drift
Hallucination Monitoring
Escape Strategies
Smart Routing
Semantic Caching
Model Quantization
Batch Processing
Hybrid Architecture
Every tech leader who watched ChatGPT explode onto the scene asked the same question: What will a production-grade large language model really cost us? The short answer hits hard—“far more than the API bill.” Yet the long answer delivers hope if you design with care.