Choosing between Opus and Sonnet 5 by task
Using Opus as the automatic in Claude may cost more than needed. Since arrived, routine work may not always need the stronger model. A practical is to rate each task before starting: how large it is, how risky mistakes would be, and how many back-and-forth rounds it may take.
Ordinary middle-level work can go to Sonnet. Larger or riskier work can still justify Opus, instead of sending every task to one .
Key points
- Opus may be an expensive for routine Claude work.
- makes it more reasonable to send , lower-risk tasks to a cheaper model.
- A simple task check can look at size, risk, and expected number of rounds.
- ant or risky work may still be better suited to Opus.
- The practical choice is between one fixed and switching models per task.