How to choose a model, Pick 2: smart, fast, or cheap

TrustedRouter’s /choose tool presents language-model selection as a three-way tradeoff among intelligence, cost, and speed, arguing that users generally can optimize for only two at once. Frontier closed models are characterized as smart and fast but expensive, small open models as cheap and fast but less capable, and larger open models as smart and inexpensive but slower. The interactive ternary chart combines independent AI IQ scores with live provider-route information, allowing users to specify their preferred balance, task requirements, and data-privacy constraints to identify suitable models. It emphasizes that model choice should vary by workload, such as using premium models for complex code refactoring and low-cost options for large-scale summarization. Privacy requirements, including zero-retention routes and trusted execution environments, can reduce available options and raise costs, while speed data is displayed only when recently measured. By integrating the comparison tool into its routing gateway, TrustedRouter aims to make switching models and providers a simple operational decision rather than a long-term commitment to a single vendor.

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