Api Cost

The Need: you cannot judge an AI job without a price tag When I start a new AI job, I always ask the same question first: what will this cost? A job can look cheap on paper and then run for hours. Or it can look scary and cost a few cents. This week I used one DeepSeek balance for four different jobs on my family book library. I wrote down the balance after each one. This post is that list, plus what I would do differently. ...

While working on this project, I had to transcribe and edit hundreds of audio files — 145 at first, later almost 400 — using a paid AI service. Each file cost real money. The whole job took hours, sometimes even overnight. If you’ve ever started a long task where each step costs money, you know the worry. Three problems can happen, and I ran into all three before I learned how to prepare for them. ...