API prices of Anthropic, OpenAI, and Google are massively inflated.

https://martinalderson.com/posts/no-it-doesnt-cost-anthropic...

There's no way that all AI inference providers are colluding and/or all running at a massive loss, meaning the cheap Chinese model prices must be the real cost it takes to run frontier-class models PLUS their margin.

Look at Deepseek 4 Pro. https://openrouter.ai/deepseek/deepseek-v4-pro/providers Deepseek and Baidu are subsidising prices but they probably train on inputs. I have no model training and ZDR in OpenRouter enabled, and the first provider that shows up there is Deepinfra, significantly more expensive than Deepseek. BUT much cheaper than Sonnet 4.6 and ChatGPT GPT-5.4.