Smart Routing Slashes AI Costs: When to Use Claude, When Not To

Not all AI work justifies expensive model calls. This piece demonstrates how routing deterministic checks to Python and reserving Claude only for genuinely ambiguous cases cuts costs dramatically—from $0.30 to $0.05 per 50 URLs. It's a practical framework that challenges the reflexive impulse to use powerful models everywhere, showing how constraint-based architecture leads to more efficient, cost-effective AI systems.