You can't really compare API prices though. The cards that they are running frontier models on in the datacenter can service hundreds of simultaneous requests and are at nearly 100% utilization. This thing would sit on your desk and be used to service a single user for a couple hours per day.

The main subsidy, from OpenAI, is ending 10/26. It’s still “cheap” for now compared to all the other non-open weight frontier models, but it won’t last since OpenAI’s stated goal is to make it so that there’s no much of a difference price wise between on demand API calls and subscriptions