Don't Let Your Team Run Out of AI (Build a Three-Tier Stack)

Don’t let your team run out of AI. I did.

We’re all living on all-you-can-eat plans from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and the rest. The goal is to get us hooked, the same way Facebook and Meta did. The plans are generous right now on purpose.

And lately I’m hearing the same thing every day: “I ran out of AI on my standard plan and fell back to my second tool because I needed to get work done.”

I didn’t hear that in December. From anyone.

Video: You’re OVERPAYING for AI (Fix This) on MarketingAlec

Let’s review my usage

It’s halfway through February and I’ve already:

Hit the limit on my Claude Max 20x plan every single week
Burned through my Gemini Pro plan both weeks
Run 343 million tokens on OpenRouter on top of all that

Now, I’m not your standard user, and I’m not a coder. I do a lot of research, but most of that volume is me running three models in parallel so I can fact check myself and not ship AI slop.

Maybe you’re at this point. Maybe you’re not. But someone on your team is going to get here, and probably sooner than you think.

So, being the frugal New England bastard that I am, let’s talk about how you save money and don’t run out of AI.

The three-tier setup that keeps you running

This is the routing structure I run, and it’s the same one I’d hand any team. Pick a tool for each tier. Don’t pick a single tool for everything:

A primary AI. For our teams, Claude Opus 4.6.
A secondary AI. For our teams, ChatGPT 5.2.
A low-cost AI. Gemini 2.x Flash or Grok 4.1 Fast.

If routing the right job to the right tool is new to you, that’s the whole skill I break down on the AI marketing skills pillar. The tiers above are routing in miniature. Depth goes to the primary, overflow goes to the secondary, and the cheap volume work goes to the low-cost tier so you stop paying premium prices for routine tasks.

You think this won’t happen to you

I get it. But both Microsoft and Google have said out loud that they can’t keep up with demand. When the people selling the capacity tell you they’re short on capacity, believe them.

Your other option is OpenRouter, where you pick from 300+ AI models and pay only for what you actually use.

I’m doing both.

Why? Because I believe the teams with the lowest cost to run their AI are going to have a real, lasting advantage.

I have PTSD from getting beaten by Google when I ran a search engine. We were running DEC Alpha machines at a million two apiece. Larry and Sergey were driving to CompUSA, buying $1,200 desktops, and running Linux on them in their garage.

This 10X gap feels eerily similar.

Even if you think AI is overrated

Let’s say you’re a skeptic. Your position is: I don’t care if I run out of AI, it’s just not that useful yet.

Fair enough for the big chunk of the country still using AI like a fancier Google search.

But this part is harder to wave off. Compare Opus 4.6 against MiniMax M2.5 on OpenRouter. On one side is arguably the leading model in the world, Opus 4.6. On the other is a newer Chinese model, MiniMax M2.5. It’s roughly 25 times cheaper on output.

Which means there’s some guy sitting in his garage running 25X cheaper than you are today.

So even if you think AI isn’t all that useful yet, there are very few businesses that can run at a 25X cost disadvantage and survive. That’s why I’m busy every day trying to crush that cost gap. It really does keep me up at night.

Where to start

I put together a guide for OpenRouter so you can test running Grok 4.1 Fast, or maybe go the way Airbnb did and lean on a Chinese provider.

“We’re relying a lot on Alibaba’s Qwen model. It’s very good. It’s also fast and cheap,” he said. “We use OpenAI’s latest models, but we typically don’t use them that much in production because there are faster and cheaper models.”

Brian Chesky, Airbnb CEO

The guide is practical and step by step. It shows you how to reach hundreds of AI models, pay only for what you use, and run a leaner stack.

Inside, you’ll learn how to:

Set up OpenRouter in under 10 minutes
Create presets for copy, research, and strategy
Test and compare models so you know which one actually wins
Cut your AI spending by 50 to 85 percent

Get the free guide: Download The Marketer’s Guide to OpenRouter.

If you want the wider picture of where these tools fit across your whole marketing function, I keep that current on the AI marketing hub.

Just don’t let your team run out of AI.

-Alec

Don’t get caught at the wall on a deadline

The running-out problem is coming for every team without a low-cost tier in place. Once a week I send the frugal plays for staying under budget: which model to route which job to, where the 25X price gaps actually live, and how to test a cheaper provider before your standard plan taps out mid-project.

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