THE CURRENT STATE OF AI TOKENOMICS | WHAT CFOS SHOULD KNOW

Summary from the TLDR Founders newsletter

OpenRouter reports that open-weight models account for about 60% of weekly tokens on its platform but only 26% of spending. The price on the model list doesn't tell you what a completed task will cost. Cache discounts change the bill, and failed requests still cost money. If requests cost $1 and succeed 80% of the time, each successful result costs $1.25. Budget against successful tasks using your actual cache discounts and retry costs, then compare providers on that basis.