Why We Built an AI Stack Cost Dashboard — And the $395/Mo We Found in Waste
Tool Crucible evaluation of Why We Built an AI Stack Cost Dashboard — And the $395/Mo We Found in Waste — real-world testing, tradeoffs, and current stack.
Published 2026-06-07
TL;DR: 9 tools at $435/mo → 4 tools at $40/mo after auditing per-query cost. The dashboard (Grafana + SQLite, 300 LOC) pays for itself monthly — full comparison.
The Context
Team of 4. Stack: Copilot, Cursor, Claude Pro, GPT-4o API, Perplexity, v0, Replit, Warp, Local Ollama. Finance flagged “AI tools” as 3rd largest SaaS line item. No one owned the budget; each dev expensed different tools.
What We Tested
| Tool | Monthly Cost | Actual Usage | Cost/Query | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| GitHub Copilot | $800 (token) | 2,000 q/day | $0.40 | ❌ Kill |
| Cursor Pro | $80 (4 seats) | 500 q/day | $0.16 | ⚠️ Keep 1 seat |
| Claude Pro | $20 | 200 q/day | $0.03 | ✅ Keep |
| GPT-4o API | $150 | 1,000 q/day | $0.15 | ❌ Replace with router |
| Perplexity Pro | $20 | 50 q/day | $1.33 | ❌ Kill (use free) |
| v0 | $20 | 10 q/day | $6.67 | ❌ Kill |
| Replit | $20 | 5 q/day | $13.33 | ❌ Kill |
| Warp | $15 | 20 q/day | $2.50 | ❌ Kill |
| Ollama (local) | $0 (hw) | 1,500 q/day | $0.00 | ✅ Expand |
The Pivot Point
Built a 300-line tracker: every API call logs {tool, model, tokens_in, tokens_out, cost_usd, dev, repo, timestamp}. Grafana dashboard revealed: 60% of Copilot tokens were boilerplate (imports, types, basic loops) — tasks local 7B handles perfectly. Perplexity used for “how to center div” — free search does this.
What We Use Now
Consolidated stack ($40/mo):
- Ollama (local) — default for all completion
- Alibaba Qwen API ($3/mo) — routed via LiteLLM for medium complexity
- Claude Pro ($20/mo) — 1 shared seat for architecture/review
- Cursor Pro ($20/mo) — 1 seat for composer-heavy dev
- Dashboard: SQLite + Grafana, alerts at $50/mo projected
When You’d Choose Differently
- Larger teams (10+): Per-seat tools get volume discounts; consolidation ROI shifts
- Enterprise compliance: Some tools required for audit trails (Copilot Enterprise)
- Non-technical users: Perplexity/v0/Warp have GUI value devs don’t need
Tool Crucible Rating
| Overall | Ease | Value | Support |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4.7/5 | 3.5/5 | 5/5 | 3.0/5 |
This is part of our AI cost management series. See full comparison: AI Tool Stack Cost Audit 2026
Last reviewed 2026-06-07. See our methodology and affiliate policy.