Models & deployment
Choose who runs
your AI team.
The setup journey compares managed Cloud with your own provider accounts and infrastructure. Use the same workload in both to see which responsibilities you want to take on.
Both are setup-planning options today. The preview calculates examples and exports a plan; it does not purchase credits, connect providers, or provision a runtime.
Responsibility comparison
What each setup choice means.
| Decision | Autoglide Cloud design | Self-managed design |
|---|---|---|
| Model access | Managed access, with model usage represented as credits. | Your provider account. Setup offers OpenAI, Anthropic, another provider, or a choice per agent. |
| Execution host | Managed hosting, shown as a separate estimate line. | Your computer or server. External hosting costs are outside the estimate. |
| Usage payment | Usage credits, hosting, and platform fee share the sample budget. | Your provider bills you directly. No Autoglide credit allocation. |
| Maintenance | The managed service would operate its runners and upgrades. | You would operate the host, runtime, credentials, and upgrades. |
| Work boundaries | You define owners, reviews, and the spending ceiling. | You define the same boundaries and enforce provider/runtime limits. |
Try a fair comparison
Change one choice at a time.
Keep the work constant
Choose one work area, a steady workload, and three roles. Use the same company mission for both options so the comparison stays meaningful.
Compare model strategies
Balanced assigns more capable models to decisions and lighter ones to routine work. Higher capability raises the example usage assumption across the team.
Inspect the cost lines
Cloud separates model usage, hosting, and the platform fee. Self-managed shows estimated provider usage; add your own hosting costs before comparing totals.
Pick a planning period
Weekly, monthly, and yearly use 7, 30, and 365 days. In the annual Cloud example, only the platform fee is discounted; credits are allocated monthly.
Before choosing
Ask the operational questions.
- Must work continue when your computer is asleep or offline?
- Who will rotate keys and investigate a failed run?
- Does your company require a particular provider or hosting environment?
- Is the estimate affordable at its upper range, including external costs?
The calculator uses illustrative rates, including 100 sample usage credits per $1. Download its JSON plan to keep the assumptions alongside the estimate.