What Is Model Routing? Sending Each Request to the Right Model
Not every request needs the most expensive, capable model — model routing automatically sends each one to whichever model actually fits the task.
Matching each request to the right model
Model routing automatically directs each incoming request to whichever available model best fits its needs — a smaller, cheaper model for a simple task, a larger, more capable one for something genuinely complex — rather than sending every single request to the same fixed model regardless of what it actually requires.
Why this saves real money without sacrificing quality
Because inference cost scales with model size, routing simple requests to smaller models and reserving expensive, larger models for genuinely hard tasks can cut overall cost substantially, without meaningfully hurting quality on the easy majority of requests that never needed the biggest model anyway.
How routing decisions actually get made
Routing logic ranges from simple rules (certain request types always go to a specific model) to a small classifier model that predicts task difficulty and routes accordingly, sometimes with a fallback to a stronger model if the initial response doesn't meet a quality threshold.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is model routing?
Automatically directing each incoming request to whichever available model best fits its needs — a smaller model for simple tasks, a larger one for complex tasks — rather than always using the same fixed model.
Why does model routing save money?
Because inference cost scales with model size, routing easy requests to smaller, cheaper models and reserving expensive models for genuinely hard tasks cuts overall cost without meaningfully hurting quality on the easy majority of requests.