We’re currently paying for eight separate AI model subscriptions—different teams licensed different tools, and it spiraled from there. The licensing cost is becoming a real problem, and we’re looking at whether consolidating into a single platform actually saves money or just trades one headache for another.
I’ve heard about platforms that give you access to 400+ models under one subscription. On the surface that’s appealing, but I’m concerned about what we’re actually trading: flexibility around model choice, per-team budgeting control, that kind of thing.
The other thing I’m unsure about is whether consolidation actually hits the cost target. Are we just shifting expenses rather than cutting them? And how do you handle it when different teams want different models?
Has anyone actually made this consolidation work? What does the finance conversation around it actually look like?
We consolidated from twelve separate subscriptions to a single unified plan about nine months ago. Here’s what actually happened with costs.
Before: We were paying roughly $8k per month spread across API subscriptions, platform fees, and per-use overage charges that we never fully tracked. Finance had no visibility. Nobody knew what we were actually spending.
After: Single subscription is $2.5k per month, flat. But here’s the real win—we have unified usage tracking. We immediately saw which teams were actually using which models. Turned out three teams weren’t using their paid subscriptions at all. We reallocated those budgets.
The financial conversation is actually easier now. Finance sees one line item. Teams see shared model access without fighting over API keys. DevOps stopped managing ten different authentication systems.
Cost savings were about 25-30% just from eliminating waste and overage charges. The coordination benefit was worth another 15% in team velocity gets.
One thing to know upfront: consolidation doesn’t automatically cut costs. It cuts complexity, which leads to cost savings if you actually manage it. We made the move and initially didn’t save anything because teams just kept spending at the same rate—they just didn’t see individual bills anymore.
What changed it for us was implementing actual governance. Usage quotas per team. Deprecating redundant model subscriptions. Requiring justification for expensive models. That’s what generated the actual savings.
So the answer to your question is: consolidation creates opportunity for cost cuts, but you have to actively manage it. The platform consolidation is the easy part. The financial discipline is the hard part.
The cost model shifts from per-model pricing plus per-use overages to flat-rate execution-based pricing. For most organizations, that’s where savings appear. Not because the platform is cheaper per se, but because your unpredictable overages disappear. You pay for compute time, not for individual API calls or model access fees.
The secondary savings come from not managing multiple vendor relationships and authentication systems. That’s not captured in the headline cost number, but it’s real in operational budget.
Compare per-model costs and monthly overages against flat-rate execution pricing. Factor in transition costs. Real savings usually appear year two, not year one.
This is where Latenode’s unified pricing model actually delivers. Instead of paying for GPT-4, Claude, Gemini, and Deepseek separately, you get all 400+ models under one subscription.
Here’s the math: most organizations consolidating from multiple subscriptions see 40-60% total cost reduction. That’s not just model access—it’s the elimination of per-operation fees, vendor management overhead, and wasted overages from unused subscriptions.
How it works in practice: your teams use whatever model is best for the task, all within the same execution-based pricing. Want to use GPT-5 for one workflow and Claude for another? No additional cost. No negotiating separate vendor agreements.
The finance conversation gets simple: one contract, one invoice, one support team. Governance becomes easier because you have unified usage tracking across all models.
Start by auditing what you’re currently paying across all your model subscriptions. Then map that against unified pricing. Most organizations are surprised by the gap.