“If it costs this much to run inference for OpenAI, I believe it costs this much for any generative AI firm to run on OpenAI’s models. If it does not, OpenAI’s costs are dramatically higher than the prices it is charging its customers, which makes me wonder whether price increases could be necessary to begin making more money, or at the very least losing less.”
Our reading:
Zitron believes that if inference costs OpenAI this much, it costs this much for any generative AI firm running on OpenAI's models, and that if it does not, OpenAI's costs are dramatically higher than the prices it charges customers, which makes him wonder whether price increases could be necessary for OpenAI to make more money or lose less.
Assessment: Can’t be checked
What happened
Not graded on evidence
Outcome: Can’t be checked
An opinion, a recommendation, or too vague to test. Listed, not scored.
Evidence up to . Checked .
Why
The passage combines a conditional belief, an ambiguous cost comparison, and speculation about possible price increases. Treating 'this much' as an equal-workload unit cost would supply a meaning Zitron did not state. Treating the cost-versus-price branch as unconditional would also remove his premise. No fair binary test can be assigned without those additions.
Caveats
- This does not establish that costs are equal across firms or that OpenAI sells below cost.
- The unknown condition is preserved rather than treated as satisfied.
Evidence (0 items)
Claims like this aren’t scored, so there is no evidence to show.
How we judged it
- Kind of claim
- Observation
- Deadline
- None given. We don’t add one.
Conditions
- if it costs this much to run inference for OpenAI (their words)
- I believe (their words)
- makes me wonder whether price increases could be necessary (their words)
Where we had to interpret
- The first branch is a conditional belief; the final clause raises a possibility rather than predicting a price increase.
- 'This much' does not specify total spending, per-token cost, or cost for an equivalent workload. An equal-workload test would add a measure the speaker did not supply.
- The intervening cost-versus-price statement remains conditional on the preceding branches. It cannot fairly be assessed as an unconditional assertion.
- No uniform target period or measurable threshold is assigned to the industry-wide comparison.
We don’t grade claims like this. We only check the quote and who said it.
What would settle it
Clarification of the intended cost measure, comparison period, firms, and conditional branch, followed by evidence establishing the premise and matching costs and prices.
We found 14 claims in this post. See them all.
Full record
Source and dates
Where's Your Ed At, Exclusive: Here's How Much OpenAI Spends On Inference and Its Revenue Share With Microsoft, paragraph 93.
- Said
- We read the source
- live page, full text, public
- Evidence up to
- Checked
We read this wording on 2026-10-28. The post may have been edited after 2025-11-12.
Where it was said (1)
Said once in the posts we read.
: Where's Your Ed At, Exclusive: Here's How Much OpenAI Spends On Inference and Its Revenue Share With Microsoft
If it costs this much to run inference for OpenAI, I believe it costs this much for any generative AI firm to run on OpenAI’s models. If it does not, OpenAI’s costs are dramatically higher than the prices it is charging its customers, which makes me wonder whether price increases could be necessary to begin making more money, or at the very least losing less.
- Where
- paragraph 93
- Published
- 2025-11-12
- We read it
- , live page
- Access
- full text, public
History
Versions
- Current: Can’t be checked. Evidence up to 2026-10-28.
What happened to this record
PublishedBy us
Published after both AI reviews and the final check passed.
Held backBy us
A reviewer said our test wasn’t fair to what was actually said.