{"id":703459,"date":"2026-06-14T11:38:26","date_gmt":"2026-06-14T11:38:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/703459\/"},"modified":"2026-06-14T11:38:26","modified_gmt":"2026-06-14T11:38:26","slug":"ai-costs-spike-as-subscriptions-hit-pricing-wall-firms-turn-towards-chinese-llms-open-source-models-to-extend-budget","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/703459\/","title":{"rendered":"AI costs spike as subscriptions hit pricing wall \u2014 firms turn towards Chinese LLMs, open-source models to extend budget"},"content":{"rendered":"

The cost of serving AI via a subscription model has steadily increased for AI firms, especially as the decrease in cost per token has not kept pace with the spike in token usage. According to SemiAnalysis<\/a>, the subscriptions that both Anthropic and OpenAI offer are much cheaper than the actual cost you have to pay if you maximize their usage. The research firm purchased every subscription from the two AI providers and discovered that the approximate maximum possible spend (assuming API pricing) is far larger than what users pay every month. For example, Claude Max 20x costs $200 a month, but maximizing it would cost $8,000 a month in token spend, while ChatGPT Pro 20x, which is also $200 monthly, has a maximum possible spend of around $14,000.<\/p>\n

Go deeper with TH Premium: AI shortages<\/p>\n

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(Image credit: Nvidia)<\/p>\n

Anthropic breaks even on its two lower plans (Claude Pro and Claude Max 5x) at 20% utilization, while OpenAI starts losing money if utilization on its base plans (ChatGPT Plus and ChatGPT Pro 5x) exceed 11.4%. Things are much worse for the two companies\u2019 top-end offerings, with Anthropic hitting 0% gross margin if utilization reaches 10%, while OpenAI is in the red if usage exceeds 5.7%. This is certainly unsustainable, but cutting features or raising subscription prices is likely off the table for these companies as well.<\/p>\n

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It\u2019s not all bad news, though \u2014 as new models arrive and more data centers go online, the cost of serving existing models is bound to decrease, with SemiAnalysis predicting that serving Opus 4.8-level models at $20 a month could become profitable soon. On the other hand, frontier models, like Mythos, will still be much more expensive to run, so it\u2019s likely that the latest, most advanced features could be reserved for API access only, meaning you\u2019ll need to pay for it on a per-token basis.<\/p>\n

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Recently, we purchased one of each Anthropic\/OpenAI subscription plan and randomly ran long horizon coding tasks until we exhausted the weekly limit. It’s widely believed that a $200\/month plan maxes out at ~$2000\/month worth of tokens (assuming API pricing). However, we found\u2026 pic.twitter.com\/1e0zFhbFuoJune 10, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n

Expensive frontier models have firms looking elsewhere <\/p>\n

As SemiAnalysis showed, subscription tiers are more affordable than API access. However, you\u2019d still need the latter if you want to access the full capabilities of these AI models, and this is where budgets start breaking. Powerful agentic AI uses up to a thousand times more tokens than the average model, and big firms like Microsoft<\/a>, Meta, and Amazon<\/a> are backing off \u201ctokenmaxxing\u201d as costs spiral out of control<\/a>. One unnamed company even blew through $500 million in one month<\/a> after failing to impose a usage limit on its employee licenses.<\/p>\n

Because of this, some firms have started using tools that switch these expensive frontier models for cheaper, more affordable ones, including Chinese open-source models like DeepSeek. A Wall Street Journal<\/a> report says costs could be reduced by up to 95% by allowing agents to switch between AI models as needed. \u201cYou don\u2019t need a model that knows quantum gravity,\u201d Columbia University vice dean Vishal Misra told the publication. \u201cThese open-source models are very capable, and the ability to charge a big premium for AI is going to diminish.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Flo Crivello, the founder of Lindy, a startup providing AI executive assistant services, also told WSJ that the company has moved towards DeepSeek V4, as it proved to be as capable as Sonnet while costing ten times less. Although it still reserves Anthropic\u2019s models for advanced work like coding, Crivello said that using the cheaper model has \u201csaved the company millions of dollars.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other firms have begun building their own AI using open-source models, which are tailored to their specific needs and trained on in-house data. While this might seem complicated and expensive at first, it could save the company in the long run, as it would not have to rely on third-party providers for its AI needs. Some even claim it could outperform frontier models, as they\u2019re built for the firm’s specific needs and applications.<\/p>\n

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The availability of cheaper models and AI agents that optimize operational costs by using the more expensive options only as needed is putting pressure on OpenAI and Anthropic to lower their prices. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has talked about the issue of ballooning AI token costs<\/a> and said the company is looking for ways to help users \u201cget more value for less spend\u201d when using ChatGPT.<\/p>\n

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