How much does a server for AI cost
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A server for AI agents that call a cloud model costs about 5 to 20 dollars a month. Running the model itself on the server needs more memory: about 20 to 60 dollars a month without a GPU, and from roughly 150 dollars with one.
Agents only: the cheap option
If the model lives in the cloud (Claude, GPT), the server only runs your agent code, a database and a scheduler. Two cores and 4 GB of memory are enough for most small teams.
Your own model on the server
A 7 to 8B model on a CPU server needs about 16 GB of memory and answers in seconds, which is fine for internal tools and document search. For many users at once or larger models, a GPU server pays off.
Costs people forget
Backups, a domain, and your time when something breaks at night. Set up daily backups and an outage alert from day one: they cost little and save the most.