Equation 3 · The Hidden Infrastructure Bill Behind Every RAG Answer
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Symbol r
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where S is index size in gigabytes, r(S) is Pinecone’s documented read units per query as a function of that size, Q is monthly query volume, and , , and are the published per-unit rates given earlier. Set against it, the cost of skipping retrieval and instead inlining a fixed block of extra context on every single call is
Sources cited in the article section
- [1] API Pricing ↗
- [11] Gemini Developer API Pricing ↗
- [10] Retrieval Augmented Generation or Long-Context LLMs? A Comprehensive Study and Hybrid Approach ↗
These citations give research context. Read each source to check which claims it supports.
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