AnalysisOpinion / analysisEfficiency & Inference1 source · Oct 19, 2026

Cutting our inference bill by 68% by being obsessive about optimization

When we previously blogged about our AI code reviewer in April, an average review cost a palatable $1.19.

Proof1 independent outlet

Key points

  • With code quality at high effort, the average review now costs just $0.77, down 68% from the $2.43 it averaged over our two most expensive weeks before we started.
  • Our main goal was to cut costs, but as part of this work we also managed to optimize the reviewer, so that the median review now takes just 1m 32s instead of the 4m 09s it took before.
  • About 40% of the savings came from changes and optimizations to the reviewer's code, and the rest from experimenting with which models we use and how much effort they put in.
  • How a review doubled in cost

Sources (1)

  • [1]Cutting our inference bill by 68% by being obsessive about optimization
    Cloudflare Blog: AI · Oct 19, 07:12 PM
    When we previously blogged about our AI code reviewer in April, an average review cost a palatable $1.19.
    With code quality at high effort, the average review now costs just $0.77, down 68% from the $2.43 it averaged over our two most expensive weeks before we started.

Extractive summary: sentences quoted from the sources.

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