Cost Calculator
What would cloud AI actually cost?
EdgeLance runs all AI inference locally on hardware you own. Configure your deployment below to see what replicating this capability through cloud APIs would cost at current market rates.
Quick Presets
Team Size
Mission Intelligence Level
Derived Equipment
Cloud API Tier
Mission Tempo
Per Hour
$34.75
$2.90/device (12 total)
Per Mission
$278.04
8 hrs
Per Month
$3.34K
12 missions
Per Year
$40.0K
cloud API costs
EdgeLance AI Cost
$0/yr
Local inference on hardware you already own. No API fees. No per-token billing.
Cloud API Cost Breakdown
| Workload | $ / Hr | $ / Month | $ / Year |
|---|---|---|---|
Object Detection (AWS Rekognition) 28,800 frames/hr across 4 cameras | $28.80 | $2.76K | $33.2K |
Vision Analysis (GPT-4o Vision) 864 detection crops/hr | $3.46 | $331.78 | $3.98K |
Transcription (Google Cloud STT) 15 min/hr x 1 nodes | $0.24 | $23.04 | $276.48 |
Segmentation (AWS SageMaker (always-on)) 1 endpoints | $2.03 | $194.88 | $2.34K |
LLM Narration (Gemini 2.5 Flash) 200 calls/hr | $0.10 | $9.79 | $117.50 |
Data Egress (AWS Egress) 1.4 GB/hr | $0.13 | $12.15 | $145.80 |
| Total Cloud Cost | $34.75 | $3.34K | $40.0K |
AI Cost Comparison
Both approaches require the same hardware. This compares AI and inference costs only.
| Timeframe | Cloud AI Cost | EdgeLance AI Cost | You Save |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 Mission | $278.04 | $0 | $278.04 |
| 1 Month | $3.34K | $0 | $3.34K |
| 6 Months | $20.0K | $0 | $20.0K |
| 1 Year | $40.0K | $0 | $40.0K |
| 3 Years | $120.1K | $0 | $120.1K |
Methodology
Cloud costs calculated from published API pricing as of May 2026: AWS Rekognition, Google Cloud Vision, OpenAI, Google Gemini, Anthropic Claude, Google STT, AWS Transcribe. Node allocation: ~4 operators per compute node. Detection hit rate: 3% of frames. Egress: ~50KB/frame. EdgeLance runs on hardware teams already own (laptops, phones, cameras). AI inference runs locally at zero marginal cost. No API fees, no per-token billing, no vendor dependency. This calculator excludes SATCOM/LTE connectivity, cloud infrastructure, and per-seat licensing which would increase cloud costs further.