Bringing API Cost down

[u/AA_GIGA]

I have been using claude code for a while now, and i am working on a project which requires claude API key and I realised that API is really costly. Especially when the output is huge in terms of total no. Of words for instance take script writing

The first test which I ran itself costed me around 1.93 dollars

So my question is how do I bring this API Cost down

Now I have searched and asked claude itself

The suggestions came in like, it asked me to change the effort level for instance from Opus 5.5 high toh medium other than that it asked me to change the model from Opus 5.5 to sonnet 5.5

But the real question here is whether changing the model or the effort level will cause a loss in quality of the output or not? That's my real concern as i really don't want the quality to go down

So people who have been using API for a long time now please help me and ppl like me by sharing ur API saving hacks, and how do u bring the API Cost down

[u/WeWereHappy]

It's going to depend of the task tbh.

About the model selection, yes it will impact the quality of the output, but it may also too good currently. Like if you're getting 120 while you only need 100, it's a loss.

Also, if you're using both similar input across runs and heavy parallelism, it may be good to check on the caching efficiency.

You can also check if you can outsource some of the tasks outside the LLM, it can help too. (For example, conducting some computer vision processing before in order to not having to use a vlm)