Tip: Use Haiku as a Gatekeeper Before Sonnet to Cut API Costs ~80% on Unstructured Text Pipelines

r/ClaudeAI·medium signal

A documented pattern: route all incoming unstructured text through Claude Haiku first with a lightweight classifier prompt, then forward only the records that require deeper reasoning to Sonnet. The builder behind PainSignal reports ~80% cost reduction on high-volume API workloads using this two-tier routing approach. The key is writing a tight Haiku classifier that identifies records not worth escalating — Haiku's 4.5 speed/cost ratio makes it viable as a pure filter layer.