Development, testing, QA, and sandbox environments rarely have the steady, predictable traffic patterns needed to justify PTU deployments. These workloads often run intermittently, with lower throughput and shorter usage windows. When PTUs are assigned to such environments, the fixed hourly billing generates continuous cost with little utilization. Switching non-production workloads to PAYG aligns cost with actual usage and eliminates the overhead of managing PTU quota in low-stakes environments.
PAYG charges per input and output token, making it cost-efficient for sporadic or low-volume workloads. PTUs incur fixed hourly charges regardless of utilization. Using PTUs in non-production environments typically results in paying for unused capacity.
