Beyond GPUs: How Token Pricing Became the New Cloud Cost Driver

LLM inference costs are quietly dominating cloud budgets at 14%+ of total spend, driven not by GPU costs but by token pricing—where a staggering 35x gap separates the cheapest and most expensive providers. Switching to low-cost alternatives like Global API can reduce daily inference bills from $500K to $14K, directly extending your company's runway. This represents a fundamental shift in cloud optimization priorities for any LLM-backed product.