If you've been running an AI service for any length of time, you've probably hit this question at some point. "Is using an API actually the cheaper option? Or would it be better to just buy a GPU and run it ourselves?" As model performance converges, cost has become the decisive battleground. Teams at every scale are starting to run the numbers on which approach is actually cheaper for their usage volume — and the answer changes significantly depending on how much you're act

Across industries, job functions, and academia, more teams are building their own AI agent assistants and putting them to work. But the longer you run them, the harder it is to ignore one unavoidable reality: cost . An API invoice larger than your monthly subscription fee, quietly accumulating call by call, has become a familiar sight. AI agents don't call a model once per task. They call it tens or even hundreds of times per job -- planning, invoking tools, verifying results

If you've ever tried serving an open-source AI model yourself, you know the pain. Setting up GPU infrastructure takes longer than choosing the model itself. Provisioning GPUs, configuring environments, scaling with traffic... the road to running a single model is way too long. Air API eliminates that entire process. It's a serverless API service for open-source AI models. No infrastructure to build. Just an API key to get started. Key Features 💡 OpenAI-Compatible Endpoint