Local LLM Payback Calculator

Find out how long your local LLM rig takes to pay for itself

Problem

People are told "just buy a Mac or a GPU and run models locally, it pays for itself," but nobody shows the actual math. Users don't know their daily token usage, the cloud model price they're comparing against, or how many months of depreciation it takes to break even, so they either overspend on hardware or miss real savings. Region-locked subscriptions, throttling, and shared accounts make cost judgment even murkier.

Solution

Enter your rig specs and price, target local model, daily token volume, and the cloud model you're comparing against; get payback days, monthly bill comparisons, and sensitivity analysis. Ships with presets for popular hardware and models, supports custom electricity rates and depreciation periods, and generates shareable reports.

Users

Developers self-hosting LLMs, AI founders, technical buyers evaluating hardware, anyone persuaded by the "local is cheaper" pitch but unsure

MVP

Hardware and model preset library; payback calculator taking daily tokens and cloud unit price; visual bill comparison chart; shareable read-only report link; local browser storage for calculation history

Revenue

Free basic calculator with a subscription for saved scenarios, team collaboration, and PDF export; affiliate referral fees from hardware or cloud vendors

Why now

Local models and cloud APIs are both booming, while throttling, regional pricing, and shared subscriptions make cost comparison unusually messy; an indie dev can build a useful tool from public price sheets and a few presets without owning any compute.