Great explainer! LLM routing is one of those things that seems simple but has a huge impact on costs.
The key insight most people miss: you don't need the most expensive model for everything. Most requests are routine - file reading, simple edits, straightforward questions. They work just fine on cheap models. Only a small fraction of requests actually need frontier reasoning.
Our setup:
We use JZS Token as our routing layer. One API endpoint, 40+ models, switch by changing the model name. No SDK changes, no different auth for each provider.
The cost savings are massive. Once you start routing intelligently instead of running everything on your most expensive model, the bill drops 50-70% easily.
Nice article. This should be a no-brainer for anyone using LLMs in production.