Your Free AI Lane Is Slow in the Queue, Not in the Model

Your Free AI Lane Is Slow in the Queue, Not in the Model

You moved a batch to free capacity. The token bill dropped to zero. The deadline still slipped. Nothing in the model got slower. The jobs sat in a queue you never charted. Most AI cost dashboards start counting at the first token. That is the wrong start line for a free lane. On free capacity, the wall clock usually belongs to scheduling, not to generation. This post is a drill, not a vendor pitch. You record two clocks per job. Then you run one…