CoursesAI Agents & AutomationDashboardLesson 2.5
2.5Module 2 · Models, Tools & Protocols

Model Routing & Cost Discipline

Route tasks to the right model tier to slash costs without sacrificing quality. The difference between a $500 and $5,000 monthly bill is smart routing.

Cost Routing Simulator Pricing Calculator

Cost Routing Simulator

Drag each task into the model tier you think fits best. Watch the cost projection update in real-time. Can you beat the optimal routing?

Tier 1 — Fast & Cheap

Haiku 4.5 / GPT-5.6 Luna

$0.20 – $1 / M input tokens

Tier 2 — Balanced

Sonnet 5 / GPT-5.6 Terra

~$2 / M input tokens

Tier 3 — Premium

Opus 5 / GPT-5.6 Sol

$4 – $5 / M input tokens

There is now a fourth rung above these three: the frontier tier — Claude Fable 5.1 and GPT-6 Astra, both at $10 / M input tokens. Reserve it for the handful of tasks that genuinely need it; nothing in the simulator should be routed there by default.

Monthly Cost Projection

10,000 requests/month

Pricing Calculator

Input your expected usage and see how multi-model routing compares to running everything on a single model.

10,000
1K100K
2,000
50010K

Routing Split Assumption

Tier 1 (simple tasks)80%
Tier 2 (moderate tasks)15%
Tier 3 (complex tasks)5%
Single-Model Cost
$100
per month
Multi-Model Routed Cost
$25
per month
Monthly Savings
$75
75%

Cost Optimisation Tips

Key Insight: The 80/15/5 Rule

In a well-designed agent system, roughly 80% of tasks are simple enough for the cheapest model tier — classification, routing, simple extraction, and formatting. Another 15% need a balanced model for synthesis and analysis. Only about 5% require premium reasoning power. Routing is the single biggest lever you have for controlling agent costs. A naive "send everything to the best model" approach can cost 10x more than intelligent routing with no meaningful quality difference on the simple tasks.

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