People often ask how I produce as much as I do. The question I started asking myself is different: how much does it cost, and is it worth it? I have been trying to answer that more honestly, and the answer is messier than a simple yes. I am tracking what I can, and I am learning what the value actually is along the way.
Putting a price tag on the work
The logging part is straightforward. For everything I run, the system keeps track of the input and output tokens, and it gives me a cost estimate. Over time that lets me put a real price on producing a post. I can see how much I spent on the drafting, the editing, the image prompt, the whole thing.
The model matters here too. I have been tracking which model I used for which post, because the number changes a lot depending on the choice. That is the practical side, and it is easy to do once the pipeline records it.
The cost number is the easy half. The hard half is the value.
The value is the part that does not fit in a spreadsheet
A lot of what I write ends up feeding into something else. Content from my personal blog becomes the source for a post on the Improving Thoughts blog, and that is a marketing effort from the company side, grounded in offering valuable content to our readers. A talk I gave becomes a blog post, and a blog post becomes the next talk. It is not one isolated piece of content. It is a web, and most of the value is in the connections.
There is a more direct kind of value too. When a colleague or a friend needs help with something, I can point them to a post I already wrote. I say, here is what I have on this, read it, and come back with questions. That turns a long first meeting into a better second one, because we both start from the same framing. That is genuinely useful, and it is very hard to measure. Not to mention so many skills I’ve built for my AI tools by feeding them links to my blog posts.
So I’m trying to track the cost precisely (this is a work in progress), and I am tracking the value loosely, because I do not know how to make the value precise yet (I don’t think precision is even possible here). I am okay with that asymmetry. It is better than not tracking either side.
What I track on the value side
On the value side, I look at a few things. Views matter a little. Reactions matter a little more. Comments matter most, because a comment is someone actually engaging instead of just scrolling. When someone leaves a real comment on LinkedIn or BlueSky or Facebook, I save it below the post in my vault. I described that feedback loop separately in this series, because it became its own habit.
The other thing I track is reuse. If a blog post becomes part of a talk, or gets referenced in another post, or turns into something for the Improving side, I want to know that. It is not wired up the way I would like yet, but the shape of it is clear: I spent this much on this post, and here is everything else it helped produce.
Why I still do it on the cheapest model
The cost question is why I changed how I do this work. Earlier in the year, I was using a more capable model for most of it, and it was fine. Then I saw the AI usage on my own dashboard and decided I needed to cut the cost. I moved the daily writing to the cheapest model I have, and I spent my effort making the skills good enough that the cheap model produces work I am happy with.
That choice is part of the same mindset as the tracking. I am not doing this to save pennies for their own sake. I am doing it because I want the cost to be sustainable, so that I can keep producing without a bill that makes me stop. I wrote more about the model choice itself in the next installment in this series.
The value of a blog post is mostly invisible at the moment you publish it. The cost is easy to measure, and the value is not, and that gap is exactly why many people stop writing. They see the cost and miss the web of connections forming underneath. A post is a small investment that can become a talk, a series, a marketing asset, or the exact thing a colleague needs to hear, and you rarely know which one it will become. An asset that increases value over time.
I track the cost because it keeps me honest and because it tells me what is sustainable. I track the loose side because it reminds me why I do this at all. The two together are my answer to the question of whether it is worth it. The cost is real, and the value is real too. I just have to be willing to hold both without a clean number for the second one.
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