45% is brutal if you're building on top of these models
as a bootstrapped founder. The unit economics just don't
work anymore at that price point for most indie products.
What I've been doing is running a dual-model setup —
use the cheaper/faster model for the heavy lifting where
quality variance doesn't matter much, and only route to
the expensive one when the output is customer-facing and
quality is non-negotiable. Cuts costs significantly
without the user noticing any difference.
The real risk is that pricing like this pushes smaller
builders toward open models or Chinese labs like Qwen,
which I suspect isn't what Anthropic wants long term.
What I've been doing is running a dual-model setup — use the cheaper/faster model for the heavy lifting where quality variance doesn't matter much, and only route to the expensive one when the output is customer-facing and quality is non-negotiable. Cuts costs significantly without the user noticing any difference.
The real risk is that pricing like this pushes smaller builders toward open models or Chinese labs like Qwen, which I suspect isn't what Anthropic wants long term.