Task-based AI model routing: How I cut API costs 70% by matching model tier to job complexity

Short summary

A developer shares how task-based model routing cut AI API costs from $10K to $3K per month without quality loss. The framework classifies coding tasks into three tiers—architecture, implementation, and maintenance—and routes each to appropriately priced models from Anthropic, OpenAI, and Google. The key insight: matching model capability to task complexity eliminates waste without degrading output quality.

• •Task-tiered routing reduced API costs 70% ($10K→$3K/month) with same output quality
• •Framework: Tier 1 (Opus/GPT-5.6 Terra) for architecture, Tier 2 (Sonnet/Sol) for implementation, Tier 3 (Haiku/Luna) for formatting
• •Practical gotchas: don't use Tier 3 for complex debugging; context window matters more than intelligence for large codebases

Generated with AI, which can make mistakes.