PROOF · THE WORKSHEET

Hold or rent.

Your numbers, your sum. Nothing here is a claim of ours; the arithmetic is shown, and every default can be changed.

  • 500,000requests

    From the illustrative case: half a million documents a month. An assumption, not a measurement; put in your own.

  • 3,000words

    From the illustrative case: a document of a few pages. No neutral measure of words per request exists; use your own.

  • 300words

    From the illustrative case: a short, structured answer.

  • YOUR CURRENT PRICE PER MILLION TOKENS, IN AND OUT$2$10US dollars per million tokens

    The current mid-tier list price on the two largest providers’ pricing pages, read 11 October 2026: $2 in and $10 out. A third provider’s mid tier lists lower; flagship tiers list higher; batch prices are half. Sources: pricing page, pricing page, pricing page.

  • ELECTRICITY PRICE PER KILOWATT-HOURUnited States$0.1453US dollars per kilowatt-hour
    • United States, $0.1453. 14.53 US cents per kWh: the commercial average for July 2026. A summer month; the 2025 average was 13.41 cents. Source: tariff.
    • India (Kerala, HT commercial), $0.0817. 7.90 rupees per kWh: tariff HT-IV(A) commercial, the rate above 30,000 units a month (6.90 rupees below it), in force to 31 March 2027. Energy charge only: duty, surcharge, tax and the demand charge are not included. Source: tariff.
    • United Arab Emirates (Dubai), $0.1198. 0.44 dirhams per kWh: the slab above 6,000 kWh a month (0.38) plus the fuel surcharge for October 2026 (0.06). VAT not included; other emirates differ. Source: tariff.
    • United Kingdom, $0.324. 24.51 pence per kWh: the average non-domestic price, including the Climate Change Levy, April to June 2026. Source: tariff.
    • Germany, $0.2537. 22.64 euro cents per kWh: the non-household price for sites using 500 to 2,000 MWh a year, second half of 2025. Smaller sites usually pay more, so treat it as a floor. Source: tariff.
    • Your own figure, in US dollars per kilowatt-hour.
  • $3,134US dollars

    The lowest US price for a 24 GB workstation-class card, 7 October 2026, from a price aggregator. Prices move: the past year’s low was $1,550, and one reseller asks $4,150. Source: price listing.

  • 145watts

    The card’s maximum power, from the manufacturer’s specification. At modest load it draws less. Source: specification.

  • left blankUS dollars, once

    Quoted per engagement; enter what you are offered.

  • left blankUS dollars a month

    Quoted per engagement; enter what you are offered.

The sum

RENTED, PER MONTH
$6,000
HELD, PER MONTH (POWER AND KEEP)
$15Power only: the Keep’s fee is not entered.
ONE-OFF (CARD AND FIRST JOB)
$3,134The card only: the first-job fee is not entered.
MONTHS TO CROSSOVER
1Holding has cost no more in total than renting by the end of month 1.

$250,000$0
The total paid so far, month by month, for 36 months: held in charcoal, rented in grey, the crossover in orange.

What this leaves out, on purpose: your own people’s time on either side, integration, and the accuracy of either model on your task. The first job measures the last of these on your test before you decide; the worksheet is for the money.

The arithmetic.

  1. Words to tokens. Prices are per token, so words become tokens at four tokens for every three words, the rule of thumb a provider publishes for English (100 tokens is about 75 words; see the specification). Other languages often take more tokens per word.
  2. Rented, per month. The requests a month, times the cost of one request: the tokens in times the price in, plus the tokens out times the price out, divided by one million.
  3. Power, per month. The card’s watts, times 730 hours (a year’s 8,760 hours over twelve months), divided by 1,000 to give kilowatt-hours, times the price per kilowatt-hour. This assumes the card draws its full rated power all day, every day: an upper bound for the card, leaving out the rest of the machine it sits in.
  4. Held, per month. The power, plus the Keep’s monthly fee once you enter it.
  5. One-off. The card, plus the first-job fee once you enter it. One card is assumed to carry the whole volume, as in the illustrative case; if yours needs more, enter the price and the power of all of them.
  6. Months to crossover. The one-off, divided by what holding saves each month (rented less held), rounded up to a whole month: the first month by whose end the total paid for holding is no more than the total paid for renting. If holding saves nothing each month, there is no crossover.
  7. The chart. The total paid so far on each side, month by month, for 36 months. The rented line starts at nothing; the held line starts at the one-off.

All figures are in US dollars. Tariffs set in other currencies were converted at the European Central Bank’s reference rates for 9 October 2026: one US dollar to 96.73 rupees, one pound to 1.3220 US dollars, one euro to 1.1206 US dollars; and the dirham at its fixed rate of 3.6725 to the US dollar. Results are rounded to the dollar, and to the nearest hundred dollars from ten thousand up.

This worksheet needs scripts to calculate. The method is above; the first job does the sum with you.

No data leaves the page; nothing is stored or sent.

Bring a problem. Bring an idea. Or pick one up.

One job, your bar, your test. Everything handed over, whether or not you continue.

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OWNERSHIP OF THE MODEL, THE TEST AND THE RECORD

No lock. Just the key.

Nothing we build ties you to us. You hold the model, the test and the record, and you can run them without us.

Let intelligence grow with trust, and all of us rise with it.