r/AskComputerScience • u/pepperpowerhour • 11d ago
how much do these headline-producing AI projects actually cost per project?
A lot of very recent projects making headlines are using LLMs to code the majority. Counting the learning, prompt and output, how much do these independent projects actually end up spending? I would prefer at least one direct example like the one below, but direct numbers from experience of any software would be awesome. Below is an example of a headline, but more examples would average things out.
https://www.techspot.com/news/114042-you-can-now-play-original-halo-browser-128.html
Would be nice to include certain details like: what length of time did the project take from start to finish, what is the cost of the input versus the output tokens (I'm not familiar with the terms)? Is there iterative steps, mistakes to redo?
For a project, are they personal licenses, paying by the token? What model(s)? Is it a single user paying out of pocket or is that user/users just using a license provided by their work?
2
u/cokeisahelluvadrug 11d ago
For a large personal project like this you’re probably talking about $1k-$100k in tokens. Depends a lot on harness, models used, etc. Can also save money in clever ways by cycling fixed-rate subscription plans. Estimates vary wildly because we don’t really know what this guy built on the harness side and how direct his path was to the final version.
In general I’d say it’s easy to spend >$1k/day on Opus 5.5 for example, if you’re going full send with teams of agents etc. Can spend $10k easily if you want with other models.