Understanding Zero Cost Failed Requests in AI API Marketplaces
When you build applications on top of large language models, every API call carries a cost. That cost is not just the price per token or per request. There is also the hidden cost of failed requests. A failed request is a call that never returns a useful response. It might time out, return an error, or produce garbage that you cannot use. In a traditional setup, you pay for that call anyway. The model provider bills you, and you get nothing back. That is where the concept of