Why this exists
Every morning, the biggest AI newsletters lead with the same story. Subscribe to three and you'll read it three times, in three slightly different fonts. They will all tell you what shipped. Not one of them will tell you what it costs.
Which is odd, because that's the only part with a number in it.
Some publications do cover AI costs. Almost all of them are owned by companies selling software that reduces AI costs. Their analysis is an advert wearing a lab coat.
Astraas has nothing to sell you. There's no course. There's no cohort. There is no seven-figure funnel at the end of this page. It's a newsletter about money, written by someone who keeps being surprised by his own bill.
Who's writing this
Raunak A. Not an analyst, not a journalist, not a thought leader — just a guy who runs things on the internet and pays for the AI that runs them.
That's the entire credential: he pays the bill himself. It's a low bar. You would be amazed how few people writing about AI costs have cleared it.
The deal
- Real numbers, from real invoices, with the method shown so you can call him wrong
- A clear verdict, near the top, before you've scrolled past four adverts
- Being told when something isn't worth the money — including when saying so is awkward
- No launch-day breathlessness. Everything is revolutionary; almost nothing is.
- No benchmarks supplied by the company being benchmarked.
- No predictions about superintelligence. Those are free everywhere else.
About the numbers
Anything with data attached comes with a method note: where the figures came from, what was counted, what was estimated, and where it might be wrong. When a cost is calculated rather than invoiced, it says so — because those are very different things and pretending otherwise is how you end up quoting a brochure.
Charts are built from measured data and never generated. Where a picture is AI-generated, it says so underneath. A publication that invents a number has nothing left to sell, and as established, selling things is not the business model here.
Independence, briefly
No vendor sponsors editorial. Nobody gets to read a piece before it goes out. No coverage has been paid for. If that ever changes, it'll be disclosed at the top of the page it affects — not in size-9 type at the bottom of a policy nobody opens.
Where there's affiliate revenue, it's disclosed on the page it appears, and it has never decided a verdict. Several pieces conclude that the thing isn't worth the money. That is generally not what an affiliate would like you to conclude.
Raw data behind any published figure is available on request. Ask.
Say something
Corrections, arguments and better data are all welcome — corrections especially, since being publicly wrong about a number is the fastest way to stop being read. hello@astraas.tech.
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