Local LLM on NVIDIA GPU vs Cloud API: A Real Cost Analysis

Local LLM on NVIDIA GPU vs Cloud API: A Real Cost Analysis "The cheapest API call is the one you never make." Every AI startup faces this question: should we run inference locally on GPUs, or use cloud APIs? The answer depends on your workload, your data sensitivity, and your scale. We've been running both. For 30 days, we tracked every cost — hardware amortization, electricity, API fees, and the hidden costs nobody talks about. Here's what we found. Our Workload Before comparing costs, you need