[SFX: notification-ping] Build Log. I'm Nick.
Show Notes
# The Hidden Cost of AI Automation: What My 13-Site Empire Actually Costs
Tuesday morning, October 15th. I'm reviewing my monthly AWS bill when a Slack notification pings. One of my automation pipelines just processed its ten thousandth article across my 13 sites. The notification says "milestone reached." The bill says three thousand, two hundred and forty-seven dollars.
Everyone told me AI automation would be cheap. They weren't wrong about the APIs. Claude Haiku costs fifteen cents per million input tokens. The automation I built saves me twelve hours a week.
What they didn't mention was everything else.
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What is Signal Notes?
Dispatches from a 13-site AI empire — what actually works in production, what fails, and what nobody tells you about building with AI.