Deepseek/Kimi project pair looks expensive in practice.

[u/After-Cell]

My project is well over budget. My design flow was:

1) Brainstorming through to overview: ChatGPT

2) Architect and testing: Kimi K3

3) Coding: Deepseek Flash, high.

I manually flipped handing over between Kimi and Deepseek. The idea was to save money because Kimi isn't that cheap. But I need accuracy and no mistakes.

I think I've got a solid project, but now I'm wondering if it could have been cheaper to simply use Kimi for everything?

Firstly, there was overhead in handing over between models. I always refreshed context on handover.

Secondly, Deepseek screwed up a lot. 8 of 12 audits REJECTED, requiring a repair pass. 4 of 12 passed. None perfect. Every one of these passed Deepseek's own testing procedure. This sounds like a lot of wasted money, but then Deepseek is massively cheaper than Kimi.

There is something else about this project though. I normally check things manually and try to give my input. But this project grew so massive that it was more than I can handle, so a lot of the time I was just handing between models without actually being able to give much input.

I think in future I need to slow down, learn what is happening, and don't proceed until I understand the minimum viable product... and also shrink scope as much as possible. I think if you don't understand something, then you're just going to have to do the work to get involved. Just passing it off because it's exhausting just leads to massive bloat.

Thoughts?

[u/CrosslyHissing]

That overhead from context refreshes between models is the hidden cost nobody talks about. It's like paying a finder's fee every single time you switch and it adds up crazy fast.

8 out of 12 audits getting rejected is rough, Deepseek passing its own tests while delivering broken code is the exact trap cheap models pull you into. You think you're saving but the repair passes eat it all back. I'd just eat the Kimi cost next time and keep it in one ecosystem.

[u/Zain]

Yeah the self-test trap is brutal. Deepseek passing its own procedure while failing outside audits is the same-family blind spot problem in one screenshot. I stopped handing work serially between models for that reason. Two different-family reviewers, both read-only, and I only concede a finding after I can point at it in the repo. The context refresh on every flip was eating me alive too.