AI keeps getting expensive? What you think about this?

Slowly raising prices is always the goal and AI is no different. Right now AI is very cheap considering the services it can provide but as demand grows the prices will definitely increase.

Currently I don't pay for AI because my needs for it are restricted to creating very simple apps, writing sales copy, fixing broken computer code, or generating images.

I spent more than $10,000 on APIs, and last year it was around $5,000. It's not that they're getting expensive .. it's because a lot of new features are coming in that we'll eventually need to use, and that's driving up the price.

Keells said:

I spent more than $10,000 on APIs, and last year it was around $5,000. It's not that they're getting expensive .. it's because a lot of new features are coming in that we'll eventually need to use, and that's driving up the price.

Click to expand...

What models are you using? And what use cases if I might ask.. At this price-point, if it doesn't require frontier level, and is fine with 90% intelligence, running locally a qwen3.8 27b or deepseek v4.1 flash 0731, will set you back 4-5k one time.

It feels that way sometimes, the big models and heavy usage still cost a lot, but there’s also more free or cheap options popping up every month so it balances out depending on what you’re doing.

MoMarketing said:

I think it is because of the infrastructure, development and costs of making them. First they give addiction to people then they increase the prices a little by little. A common practice for businesses.

Click to expand...

100% agree with you. Addicting your potential customers and increasing the prices of your services little by little, as subtly as possible , is always going to make the users buy every time.

people who use AI well will replace people who don’t,” rather than AI replacing people outright, since the cost efficiency comes from skilled human direction of the tools

no
my expenses on AI has gone done in the past year
but i have more subs and more tokens than ever
so no

AI will soon be a lot more expensive. All these companies are burning cash right now. The catch is that economies of scale don't apply here like in regular manufacturing. As the token output increases, prices rise instead of dropping because there's a massive global shortage of electricity and hardware.
Exploit it while you can and build everything you can think of, especially (black|gray)hat tools. Soon enough, we’ll be getting fewer tokens in our subscription plans for a higher price. More of that

Moreover, the models will get dumber as they add more safety guardrails. They'll become heavily censored and overly strict about prompt ethics. Which is already happening, by the way.

I think it depends on how you use it. Paid AI tools can get expensive, but they’re worth it when they save real time or improve results. I’d start with free tiers and pay only for features that make a noticeable difference in your workflow.