AI and infrastructure
AI Model Routing: Keep Margin Analysis Aligned With the Actual Route
By the Orvlin team · · 2 min read
Ai model routing unit economics: what to decide
An application routes easy tasks to a cheaper model and difficult tasks to a more expensive one. A dashboard using only the default model’s rate may overstate or understate margin across both groups.
Record route decisions, model versions and costs without exposing unnecessary customer content. Compare outcome quality and cost together. A low-cost route that causes more retries may be more expensive per successful task.
Follow one account through the calculation
A hypothetical route costs $0.02 per attempt and succeeds half the time, averaging $0.04 per success before overhead. Another costs $0.03 and succeeds every time in the sample. The cheaper attempt is not the cheaper completed result.
Check this before launch
A routing change is a product-quality decision as well as a cost decision. Do not optimize invoice margin while ignoring agreed latency, quality or service requirements.
Steps to take next
- Record actual route and relevant usage.
- Measure cost per successful customer action.
- Include retry and tool costs.
- Validate quality before changing routing policies.
Frequently asked questions
- Should model routing change the customer price?
- Only if the commercial offer defines that behavior or an approved pricing change applies. Internal route choices do not automatically authorize a different bill.