The Inference Margin Curve: Why Gateway Standardization Is an Agency Economics Decision

Model hosting gateways convert per-token inference cost from a fixed line item into a negotiable variable, because an OpenAI-compatible endpoint lets an agency swap the base URL and keep the SDK. The strategic stake is not the discount itself but the optionality: agencies that standardize on one gateway can reprice client retainers when a cheaper open-weight model lands, while agencies with hard-coded vendor integrations absorb every price increase. Treat any single host as a dependency risk and route critical workloads through a fallback endpoint.