AI Engineering
Model Right-Sizing
Choosing the cheapest model that meets the quality bar for each task. Not every API call needs Opus — most don't. A disciplined model routing strategy can cut costs 5-15x without meaningful quality loss on the tasks that matter.
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Minutes
6
Concepts
+45
XP
1
Key Mechanics — Claude Model Tiers (2026 Pricing)
Model          Input/1M    Output/1M    Context    Best For
─────────────  ──────────  ──────────── ────────── ──────────────────────
Haiku 4.5      $1.00       $5.00        200K       Classification, extraction, routing
Sonnet 4.6     $3.00       $15.00       1M         Code gen, analysis, structured output
Opus 4.6       $5.00       $25.00       1M         Complex reasoning, planning, nuance

Price ratio:   1x          3x           5x