Insights · Cost
Per-user fees against one server: the three-year sum.
Super Intelligence (SI) on your own server has a fixed price and no per-user fee. Public AI tools charge per user every month. Here is the arithmetic for 50, 200 and 500 staff, with every assumption in the open.
The assumptions
Stated before the sums
A fair comparison states its assumptions first. We assume a public AI tool costs USD 20 per user a month, the price one widely used plan lists for an individual subscription (OpenAI's help centre, read 10 October 2026). Team plans and other vendors differ, so check with your supplier. We convert at BDT 123 to the dollar, close to the Bangladesh Bank rate of 123.10 on 1 October 2026. We hold the tool's price flat for three years, which is generous to it.
For the private server we use the proposed 2027 prices from our price list, before VAT, rising 6% each January: the SI briefing at BDT 1 lakh, the SI proof at BDT 5.5 lakh, the SI server set-up from BDT 14 lakh, and SI support at BDT 90,000 a month, which comes to about BDT 34.4 lakh over three years with the rises. Hardware is the indicative 2026 range before duty and VAT, and we take the top of it. We leave out electricity, cooling and your IT team's time on both sides, and whatever the tools' prices do by 2029.
The sums
Fifty, two hundred, five hundred
For 200 staff, the subscriptions come to USD 144,000 over three years, about BDT 1.77 crore. A Department server, built for a few hundred users, costs about BDT 77 lakh over the same three years: BDT 6.5 lakh for the briefing and the proof, up to BDT 22 lakh of hardware, BDT 14 lakh of set-up and BDT 34.4 lakh of support. If you would rather we run it, managed SI operations at BDT 1.8 lakh a month replaces support and the total is about BDT 1.11 crore. Both sit well under the subscriptions, and neither moves when staff number 201.
For 50 staff the picture turns. Subscriptions cost about BDT 44 lakh over three years. A Team server, one 32 GB card for up to about 50 users, costs about BDT 70 lakh with support. On money alone the tools win at that size, and we will say so in a briefing. On these assumptions the lines cross at about 80 to 90 staff, the point where a Department server's fixed cost falls below the fees.
For 500 staff the subscriptions reach about BDT 4.43 crore while the Department server stays at about BDT 77 lakh, as long as the load test in the proof confirms that one 48 GB card carries your users. That is the shape of the comparison. A per-user fee grows with every account, and a server does not.
The lines
Where the taka goes for 200 staff
| Item | Public AI tools | Department server, your IT runs it |
|---|---|---|
| Subscriptions, 200 users, 36 months | about BDT 1.77 crore | None |
| SI briefing and SI proof | None | BDT 6.5 lakh |
| Hardware, bought from your supplier | None | BDT 17 to 22 lakh |
| SI server set-up | None | from BDT 14 lakh |
| SI support, 36 months with 6% rises | None | about BDT 34.4 lakh |
| Three-year total | about BDT 1.77 crore | about BDT 72 to 77 lakh |
Both columns before VAT. Not included: electricity and cooling, duty on the hardware, your staff's time, and any change in the tools' prices.
What the money buys
Not the same thing
The two columns do not buy the same thing, and it would be wrong to pretend they do. A public AI tool writes, summarises, translates and answers general questions from the whole internet, and it improves without you lifting a finger. A private server answers from your own documents, shows the page each answer came from, answers only from files the person asking may open, and keeps a log. It does not know what happened in the news this morning.
The comparison holds for one job: staff asking questions of your own policies, circulars, SOPs and product files. For that job the public tool has three costs the price list does not show. The documents go abroad, which for a bank runs into Bangladesh Bank's cloud guideline and for anyone touches the Personal Data Protection Act 2026. The answer carries no page reference, so someone still has to check it. And when the internet drops, so does the tool. The server keeps answering on your network.
There is also what the server will not do. It needs a server room, a UPS and a trained person to own it. It is one machine with no standby. If your users are 30 people with good connectivity and no confidential files, a subscription may be the right call, and the half-day briefing is where we would tell you so.
FAQ
Questions we are asked
Why USD 20 and not a team plan?
USD 20 is the published price of a common individual plan and easy to check. Team and enterprise plans cost more per user in most price lists we have seen, so put your own quote into the sum. The cost calculator on the pricing page takes your numbers.
What about electricity?
A one-card server draws about 1 kW at full load, about 730 kWh a month if it never idles. At your tariff that is a few thousand taka a month before cooling. See running a language model on one GPU in Dhaka.
Does the server cost rise with users?
Our fees do not. Hardware does, in three steps: Team, Department and Company. The load test in the SI proof tells you which step you need before you buy.
Put your own numbers in
Bring your staff count and your current subscriptions. The half-day SI briefing, BDT 1 lakh, ends with a cost sheet for your organisation.