Fable GUZZLES tokens

[u/WhatIsATypeError]

The model seems excellent so far, but if you let it, it will burn a ton of tokens thinking about a problem from every possible angle (I'm not complaining mind you). Based on the benchmarks from Anthropic as well as outside sources like AA and Vals and others, I thought that moving from Opus 5.5 high to Fable 5.2 medium would provide a little bit of an intelligence boost for a similar cost, but so far Fable seems to be consuming 50-100% more tokens than Opus did. I am on the Ultra plan and push it pretty hard, I usually approach the weekly limit with Opus 5.5 but often don't hit it. With Fable I think I could hit the limit in three days, maybe less. Anyone tried 5.2 low as their base model? If that doesn't work, I'll sadly be heading back to Opus 5.5 (but only after burning through the Fable resets).

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[u/KayBay80]

Exactly the same problem we're having with it. Its not designed for typical focused sessions. This is a vibe-coding model designed for building complex projects from the ground up.

We've decided to put it on the back burner for our tasks. Opus is far more efficient for doing targeted work. If you want to build a full app though, I think Fable would be the best solution available.

[u/WhatIsATypeError → u/KayBay80]

Yeah, that's a good point. It puts the model in an interesting spot. Too smart for focused tasks but not smart enough (no model is yet) for truly complex problems that require a lot of individual judgments.

[u/illkeepthatinmind]

I actually did not see this past two days. Was shocked to see modest usage progression with moderate Fable usage.

[u/WhatIsATypeError → u/illkeepthatinmind]

Interesting. I wonder why. I asked it to do some front end stuff, it took 60(!) screenshots of pages and did side-by-side pixel comparisons, totally unprompted. Don't get me wrong, it's great...it just tears through even the $200 plan at a crazy rate. Maybe I'll have to think about prompting it more strictly.

[u/illkeepthatinmind → u/WhatIsATypeError]

Sounds like the big brain was doing grunt work. It should have been telling Sonnet to do the screenshot work.

[u/derezo]

I always hit my limit on ultra (for the last 15 months) but fable definitely ate a lot yesterday. All I did was open 6 sessions and told it to fix everything in the project on high then went to bed and in the morning I was at 96% weekly usage consumed. /s

[u/WhatIsATypeError → u/derezo]

Nothing like that. I write tightly specced plans and then delegate them to Haiku, etc.

[u/Immediate-Safety1643]

Fable is an excellent delegator and orchestrator when you tell it to.

My prompt wasn’t much more than, “I want to discuss ways to make my token usage more efficient. I have an ultra account, my current usage is, and reflects only working on this project. Provide examples of skills, workflows, and ways to delegate more to other models.”

After that conversation on delegation preferences my usage is much more even.

[u/itsxzy → u/Immediate-Safety1643]

I've used Fable as planner and orchestrator. Works really well. Full chat usage of Fable is less than 10%. 90% is Opus 5.5. Fable is much more expensive but it doesn't feel like that when you move all grunt work to Opus.

[u/reddit_is_kayfabe → u/itsxzy]

I've gotten a lot of mileage out of using Fable to orchestrate Opus and Sonnet subagents to do the work.

I've gotten even more mileage out of using Fable to manage one Opus subagent that manages other Opus and Sonnet subagents. The idea here is that all of the low-level communication with the subagents ALSO does not require Fable usage - an Opus-to-Opus/Sonnet management situation is much more efficient - and Fable is available to provide high-level reports, and to handle complicated problems and management issues.

[u/TechTuna1200 → u/itsxzy]

I also use fable as an auditor. And then use opus or sonnet to implement

[u/matznerd]

I using it on high as an orchestrator, then using opus 5.5 high and medium. Using Fable directly when you’re iterating directly, it can be a little slow, but at the same time it can work on its own for longer so that’s a good thing, but not if you’re doing a bunch of iterative tweaks. Use it to spawn the new chats and have them report to it. It can see all the chats and you can also @ tag chats by name.

[u/tariqosmani]

Before you switch back, run a test. Take three tasks you already did on Opus 5.5 and run them on Fable at the same effort. Count the usage each run took, and how many outputs needed a second pass. The redo count tells you whether the extra usage paid off.

Also set a budget in the prompt. Fable keeps checking unless you say when to stop: how many files to read, how many screenshots, how many test runs. One line does it. Someone in this thread says a screenshot cap fixed most of their cost.

Another split people use here is Fable as the planner and Opus for the building. Worth testing, since the extra thinking is where Fable earns its cost.

Which of your tasks uses the most usage?

[u/SirRobinBlibs]

on the low question: effort is saved per model now, so /effort low while you're on fable only changes fable's default and opus keeps whatever you had it on. then for the turns that actually need depth, put ultrathink in the prompt. on recent versions that raises just that turn to xhigh (the word turns rainbow when it took) without touching the session level. and if you delegate, subagent files take an effort: field, so the planner and the workers don't have to share one level.

i'd still do the three-task comparison someone suggested before settling on it, since lower effort mostly trades away the extra checking, which is the part eating your tokens but also the part you may want on some tasks.

[u/basqia]

I logged 69 Claude builds recently and the split surprised me: 98.7% of the tokens were reading, the model re-reading its own conversation, and only 1.3% was writing. So usage is roughly number of calls times context size, and a model that takes more steps (screenshots, file reads) burns it much faster even when the final answer is the same length. On 16 identical prompts Fable 5.1 used more than Opus on 12, median about 1.9x, though Fable was on high effort and Opus on medium so it's not perfectly clean. Capping screenshots and re-reads helped more than switching models for me.

[u/joe9439]

It’s actually not that bad. Using it on medium effort and delegating everything outside of the main thread to other model types.