Apple Silicon proves more expensive than OpenRouter for AI model inference. A $4,299 M5 MacBook Pro costs roughly 3x more per million tokens compared to cloud services, with hardware expenses dominating electricity costs. Local inference offers privacy but comes at a premium.

Electricity costs pale in comparison to hardware depreciation. At $0.20 per kWh, power consumption costs pennies per hour, while the $4,300 device spreads costs over 3-10 years. Even at optimistic estimates, local inference remains costlier than cloud alternatives.

Performance differences further tip the scales. OpenRouter achieves 60-70 tokens per second, while Apple Silicon manages 10-40 tokens per second. For businesses, faster cloud inference delivers better value despite impressive local hardware capabilities.