Apple Silicon costs more than OpenRouter

This analysis reveals that while Apple Silicon can run capable AI models locally, the total cost of ownership (~$1.50-$4.80 per million tokens depending on hardware lifespan assumptions) is 3-10x more expensive than cloud-based alternatives like OpenRouter (~$0.38-0.50 per million tokens), primarily due to hardware depreciation dominating over electricity costs. For most enterprise use cases, cloud inference provides superior economics and 3-7x faster inference speeds, making managed AI services more cost-effective than on-device processing. IT leaders should prioritize cloud-based AI consumption models over local inference infrastructure, except in specialized scenarios requiring offline capability or extreme data sensitivity.