How I Calculate My LLM API Costs Before They Surprise Me
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Every developer building with LLMs has been there: you prototype something cool, ship it, and then the AWS/OpenAI bill arrives. I've been burned by this twice. So I started being obsessive about cost estimation before writing a single line of production code. Here's my actual workflow: Step 1: Estimate token usage realistically Don't guess. Take your average prompt + expected output, multiply by your expected daily requests. Example: A customer support bot Input: ~500 tokens (system prompt +…
1Key Takeaways
- Every developer building with LLMs has been there: you prototype something cool, ship it, and then the AWS/OpenAI bill arrives.
- So I started being obsessive about cost estimation before writing a single line of production code.
- Here's my actual workflow: Step 1: Estimate token usage realistically Don't guess.
- Take your average prompt + expected output, multiply by your expected daily requests.
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3Why it matters
Coding AI shifts how fast software ships and how much human review each change needs. DEV — AI reports that every developer building with LLMs has been there: you prototype something cool, ship it, and then the AWS/OpenAI bill arrives.
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