What does private AI cost? The cost items of your own AI environment
Short answer
The cost of private AI consists of five items: hardware (bought or monthly), placement (server room or datacentre), management, the models and the automations you have built. Open-weight models carry no licence per user. Where an AI subscription grows with every extra user, your own node grows with the capacity you need. werqly is not the cheap option: you pay for your own hardware and full control, not for the lowest price.
The five cost items
| Item | What it is | What it depends on |
|---|---|---|
| Hardware | The GPU server, bought or as a monthly fee | Model size, number of users, peak load |
| Placement | Rack space, power, cooling and network | Your own server room or a datacentre |
| Management | Updates, new models, monitoring, support | Doing it yourself or having it fully managed |
| Models | Open-weight models, with no licence per user | The model’s licence terms |
| Automations | Integrations and processes that run on the node | Number and complexity, per project |
Which hardware you need is covered in Hardware for your own AI server.
Per user or per capacity
AI subscriptions charge per user per month. That is simple for a few licences, but costs rise linearly: every extra employee costs the same amount, including those who use the tool twice a week.
Your own node costs a fixed amount for a given capacity. Whether forty or two hundred employees use it makes little difference to the cost, as long as the capacity suffices. On the other hand, a small group pays relatively a lot. See Copilot or your own AI? for the substantive trade-off.
What werqly costs
werqly works with four set-ups: your own server room or werqly Cloud, self-managed or with werqly Pro management. The calculator below shows the amounts for your organisation straight away. For law firms and notaries, see also AI for law firms and notaries.
Frequently asked questions
Questions on this topic
Is private AI more expensive than an AI subscription?
Usually yes, and that is a deliberate choice. You pay for your own hardware, management and full control over your data, not for the lowest price per user. What you get back is that no outside party takes part in the processing, and many compliance questions per service fall away.
Do I pay licence fees for open-weight models?
For many open-weight models, no: some Mistral and Qwen models, for example, are released under Apache 2.0. Do check each model’s licence, because some models restrict commercial use or use in certain regions.
Can I pay for the hardware monthly?
Yes. With werqly Cloud, a dedicated node sits in a datacentre and you pay a monthly fee instead of a purchase. The calculator shows both options side by side for your number of employees.
What does building automations cost?
That depends on the number of processes and integrations. Automations are built per customer and quoted separately, usually based on a process analysis such as the TIMA Scan.
Sources
This article is general information, not legal advice. Rules and guidance change; check the sources listed or ask your lawyer or DPO if in doubt.