Dev Tools · 1h ago
Direct AI APIs vs Aggregators: The Cost Math That Saved $48K
A CTO compares direct AI provider APIs with aggregators, finding 97.5% cost savings at every scale. At 5 billion tokens per month, direct GPT-4o costs $50,000 vs $1,250 via DeepSeek V4 Flash through an aggregator. The author built a multi-model router to avoid vendor lock-in and optimize costs.
Meridian48 take
The article's cost comparison is compelling, but it glosses over aggregator latency, reliability, and data privacy trade-offs that may matter more than pure token price.
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I Tested Direct Provider APIs vs Aggregators — Here's the Truth →
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