Plan smart, build cheap
The cheapest architecture is rarely one model. Send the hard planning and reasoning calls to a smart model, and the bulk of the work to a cheap one. See how much a two-model split saves versus paying flagship prices for every call.
Split routing
$190/month
Running everything on Kimi K3 would cost $1,200/month. Routing 15% of calls to Kimi K3 and the rest to Amazon Nova Micro saves $1,010/month (84%).
Assumes the same token mix per call for both stages. A real pipeline often uses larger prompts on the planner and shorter ones on the implementer — adjust tokens to model your case. Estimates only.
Intelligence scores are community Arena ratings from LMArena / arena.ai, used under CC BY 4.0. Snapshot last refreshed 28 July 2026. Scores are a relative signal, not an absolute measure of capability. A Measured score was voted on directly; an Estimated score is inherited from an identical base model (a regional/creator-prefixed hosting duplicate). See our methodology.
FAQ
Why split across two models?
Most workloads have a few hard calls (planning, tricky reasoning) and a lot of routine ones (formatting, extraction, boilerplate). Sending only the hard calls to an expensive model and the rest to a cheap one keeps quality where it matters and cuts the bill on the bulk.
How do I route in practice?
A simple router: run a cheap model first, and escalate to the smart model only when confidence is low or the step is flagged as hard. This calculator estimates the cost side of that decision.
Cite / link to this page
You’re welcome to reference this page and its figures with attribution and a link back.
https://aicalculatorpro.com/plan-smart-build-cheap/<a href="https://aicalculatorpro.com/plan-smart-build-cheap/">Plan smart, build cheap — two-model routing — AI Calculator Pro</a>