How much higher can costs be if you don't optimize model choice?

Paul BarnhurstFP&A Expert Empowering Finance Professionals to Excel Everday

Using the wrong AI model could cost you 50x more.

12 Nov 2025 · 1 min

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0:35

A speaker (Paul Barnhurst) discusses the importance of optimizing which AI model you use to reduce credit costs. Citing an article/tool example, the speaker says failing to optimize model choice can make costs roughly 50× higher; lightweight models can be an order of magnitude (10–20×) cheaper for simple tasks, trading off some accuracy while allowing many more calls.

Questions this video answers

Roughly 50× higher (per the speaker citing an article/tool).

Chapters

If I have credit, right? If you see how much you're using every time, you'd be like, well, how much is it for another model? Because I saw an article recently, the Guys who Do always, which is one of the tools we've talked about testing. He showed credit usage and optimization. And hey, if I use ChatGPT every single time versus this tool, how much it cost? Here's the accuracy and tested like 10 or 12. And I think if you didn't optimize your credit usage, it was like 50 times higher the cost if you're not optimizing which model you're using for which. Because if you use a lightweight model for a simple task, it can be 10, 15, 20 times less expensive than using a complex model because it can do a lot more calls and think a lot longer.