--- title: Self-Hosted LLM Costs 2026 | daily.dev description: A detailed cost breakdown for self-hosting large language models in 2026, covering three hardware tiers: cloud GPU instances (H200, B200, GB200),... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/self-hosted-llm-costs-2026-j9jaxawzw twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Self-Hosted LLM Costs 2026 | daily.dev og:description: A detailed cost breakdown for self-hosting large language models in 2026, covering three hardware tiers: cloud GPU instances (H200, B200, GB200),... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/self-hosted-llm-costs-2026-j9jaxawzw og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/J9JaXaWZW.png og:image:alt: Self-Hosted LLM Costs 2026 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Self-Hosted LLM Costs 2026 **[SitePoint](https://daily.dev/sources/sitepoint)** · 13 min read · 1 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary A detailed cost breakdown for self-hosting large language models in 2026, covering three hardware tiers: cloud GPU instances (H200, B200, GB200), dedicated/colocation servers, and personal rigs (RTX 5090, Mac Studio M4 Ultra). Includes real pricing figures, electricity and staffing hidden costs, a comparison against API providers (OpenAI GPT-4.1, Claude 4, Together AI), and a Python TCO formula with break-even analysis. Self-hosting beats frontier APIs at roughly 2M–5M tokens/day, but open-model API providers like Together AI shift that break-even to 50M+ tokens/day. Staffing (20–30% of a senior engineer) is consistently the most underestimated cost. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Local LLMs vs Cloud APIs: 2026 Total Cost of Ownership Analysis](https://daily.dev/posts/local-llms-vs-cloud-apis-2026-total-cost-of-ownership-analysis-1antqpssm) · SitePoint · 1 upvotes · 0 comments - [Blog: The Self-Hosting Threshold: When SaaS Teams Should Bring AI Inference In-House](https://daily.dev/posts/blog-the-self-hosting-threshold-when-saas-teams-should-bring-ai-inference-in-house-f8ausmdhi) · Wawandco · 2 upvotes · 0 comments - [Serverless vs. Dedicated vs. Self-Hosted LLM Inference: When Self-Hosting Actually Gets Cheaper](https://daily.dev/posts/serverless-vs-dedicated-vs-self-hosted-llm-inference-when-self-hosting-actually-gets-cheaper-ojqts8hoo) · DigitalOcean Community · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#llm](https://daily.dev/tags/llm), [#gpu](https://daily.dev/tags/gpu), [#mlops](https://daily.dev/tags/mlops), [#finops](https://daily.dev/tags/finops), [#self-hosting](https://daily.dev/tags/self-hosting) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/self-hosted-llm-costs-2026-j9jaxawzw) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Self-Hosted LLM Costs 2026","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/self-hosted-llm-costs-2026-j9jaxawzw","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/self-hosted-llm-costs-2026-j9jaxawzw"},"datePublished":"2026-03-13T21:04:23.041Z","dateModified":"2026-03-13T21:05:22.832Z","description":"A detailed cost breakdown for self-hosting large language models in 2026, covering three hardware tiers: cloud GPU instances (H200, B200, GB200),...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/cc3275380157055a43c5112c57794f40?_a=AQAEuop","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/cc3275380157055a43c5112c57794f40?_a=AQAEuop","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"SitePoint","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"SitePoint","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/t_logo,f_auto/v1/logos/sitepoint","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/sitepoint"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/self-hosted-llm-costs-2026-j9jaxawzw","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":1},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"llm,gpu,mlops,finops,self-hosting","timeRequired":"PT13M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"SitePoint","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/sitepoint"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Self-Hosted LLM Costs 2026"}]} ```