How I reduced OpenClaw costs by 60% through model routing

Cost breakdown and analysis

An OpenClaw user running four agents for website data analytics, blog content, code review, and customer support discovered they were spending $420 over 20 days ($21/day). All agents were configured to use Claude Opus exclusively at $5/1M input tokens and $25/1M output tokens.

After logging 13,500 calls across all agents for 20 days, they categorized tasks by complexity:

• 70% were simple tasks: FAQ answers, basic formatting, one-line summaries, summarizing minor PRs
• 16% were standard tasks: longer email drafts, moderate code reviews, multi-paragraph summaries
• 9% were complex tasks: deep code analysis, long-form content, multi-file context
• 6% needed real reasoning: architecture decisions, complex debugging, multi-step logic

The analysis revealed they were paying premium Opus prices for 70% of tasks that cheaper models could handle without quality loss.

Model pricing comparison

The user researched current model pricing:

• Claude Opus 4.6: $5.00 input/$25.00 output per 1M tokens (premium)
• Claude Sonnet 4.6: $3.00 input/$15.00 output per 1M tokens (mid-tier)
• Claude Haiku 4.5: $1.00 input/$5.00 output per 200K tokens (budget)
• GPT-5.4: $2.50 input/$15.00 output per 1.05M tokens (premium)
• Gemini 3.1 Pro: $2.00 input/$12.00 output per 1M tokens (mid-tier)
• Gemini 3 Flash: $0.50 input/$3.00 output per 1M tokens (budget)
• GLM-5: $0.72–1.00 input/$2.30–3.20 output per 200K tokens (budget)
• Kimi K2.5: $0.60 input/$3.00 output per 256K tokens (budget)
• MiniMax M2.5: $0.30 input/$1.20 output per 1M tokens (ultra-budget)

Implementation and results

They now only run Opus on genuinely complex tasks. Everything else gets routed to Sonnet, Haiku, Kimi K2.5, or Qwen. The transition took about a week to find the right models for each task type.

Key findings from testing:

• Claude Haiku was most reliable for customer support: fast responses, followed formatting instructions well, kept answers concise
• Haiku requires explicit prompts - it won't infer tone or style from vague instructions like Opus does
• Rewriting system prompts to spell out exactly how replies should be structured made Haiku solid for support
• Kimi K2.5 is cheaper and handles longer context well for multi-turn conversations

Users haven't noticed any difference on simple tasks, and costs dropped from $420 to $168 over 20 days.