How I Stopped Burning Cash on Token Limits — A CTO's Field Notes

Short summary

A CTO shares how to cut LLM costs by 4-5x through intelligent model routing instead of defaulting to GPT-4o. The strategy uses cheaper alternatives (DeepSeek Flash at $0.27/M input, GLM-4 at $0.20) for routine tasks while reserving expensive models for complex reasoning. Architecture includes routing, caching, and fallback layers, plus production-ready Python code using OpenAI SDK pointing to Global API.

• •Model routing strategy reduces LLM costs 4-5x by matching task complexity to appropriate model tier
• •Specific recommendations: DeepSeek Flash ($0.27/M input) for bulk, GLM-4 Plus ($0.20) for simple tasks, DeepSeek Pro for reasoning
• •Production-ready Python implementation using OpenAI SDK abstraction layer achieves cost efficiency within 10 minutes to first call

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