CFO & Strategy
AI Token Cost Risk: The Ticking Time Bomb
Collated by Harry Prabandham
Curated by Rubric Financial
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The Subsidy Problem
- OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google are losing money on every API call you make — billions in subsidies are keeping your unit economics alive
- Current token pricing is artificially low, designed to drive adoption and market share — not to generate profit
- When the music stops, inference costs could jump 5-10x overnight as providers move toward sustainable pricing
- Most AI startups have not modeled this risk — the vast majority cannot survive a 10x cost increase
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