4.88 Billion Tokens for $120 — Why I Stopped Using Frontier Models for Everything

Tue, 02 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Last month, I processed 4.88 billion tokens through an LLM. My bill: $120.

If I had run the same workload on a famous frontier model, the minimum estimate would have been $4,900. On other frontier providers’ cheapest tiers: $4,880.

I didn’t save money by being cheap. I saved money by being intentional about which model does what.

The Obvious Thing Nobody Does #

Every major LLM provider markets their flagship model as the default. But here’s what the research actually says.

Multi-Agent on Ahmed

4.88 Billion Tokens for $120 — Why I Stopped Using Frontier Models for Everything

The Obvious Thing Nobody Does #