What Local AI Actually Costs, vs. ChatGPT
We're not going to tell you a local system is the cheaper option for one or two people doing everyday chatbot tasks — for that, it usually isn't. The honest question isn't "is this cheaper than ChatGPT," it's: do you want your company's information processed by an outside AI service, or do you want an AI system your business owns? That's a different purchase. Here's the real math either way.
| Solution | 1 user/yr | 2 users/yr | 3 users/yr |
|---|---|---|---|
| ChatGPT Plus (individual) | $240 | $480* | $720* |
| ChatGPT Business Standard (annual) | —† | $480 | $720 |
| ChatGPT Business Premium (annual) | —† | $2,400 | $3,600 |
| Alden Local AI — electricity | ~$60–120 | ~$60–120 | ~$60–120 |
| Alden Local AI — hardware | from $2,799 one-time, any number of users on that machine | ||
*Separate individual Plus accounts, not a managed Business workspace. †ChatGPT Business has a two-seat minimum. Electricity estimate assumes roughly 2–8 hours/day of active inference at typical Ryzen AI Max+ 395 power draw on South Carolina residential rates.
For 1–3 ordinary users, ChatGPT wins on raw dollars — OpenAI is subsidizing enormous shared infrastructure across millions of users, and a $20–25/month seat is genuinely hard to beat on price alone at that scale. Past 3 users, or with heavy usage, the math flips fast: adding a 4th person to a local system costs roughly $0 hardware plus a little more electricity, while cloud seats keep adding $20–$125/month each, forever.
What Changes When AI Runs Locally?
| Consideration | Local AI | Cloud service |
|---|---|---|
| Where it runs | On hardware you control | On the provider's infrastructure |
| Capability | Depends on the local model and hardware | Access to powerful hosted models |
| Cost structure | Hardware, setup, power, maintenance | Subscription or usage-based charges |
| Team capacity | Limited by hardware and workload | Depends on the service and plan |
| Data handling | Can stay on-premises with the right configuration | Governed by the provider's terms |
| Maintenance | Updates and system care must be planned | Provider manages the infrastructure |
A quantized local model on this hardware is not a frontier-scale cloud model. That's not the pitch. The pitch is that this machine gives your business its own private AI system — one your company owns, on your terms.
See the systems: Business Hardware.