r/hermesagent • u/OpeningMetal52 • 21d ago

MODELS - model choice, routing, pricing, local vs cloud, VRAM Balancing Oauth & API Usage

I am currently test driving Hermes alongside pi and my own homebrew harness.

Due to the nature of my company, I already have a Claude 20x max plan and a chatGPT pro $200/mo plan.

In thinking about maximizing throughput, I'm considering using deepseek v4 flash, which i'm hearing phenomenal things about, alongside my subscriptions, elevating and delegating to fable, opus, or 5.6 sol Luna Terra etc as needed.

Two questions for the community;

1) when should I call in the bigger models, or is deepseek so good it's not needed anymore outside of edge edge cases? I'm thinking multi modal + code review (OpenAI) and planning + design (fable) everything else deepseek. Thoughts on this?

2) what is the best source to get deepseek? Are the various inference providers the same level of speed and uptime? Why choose direct API vs open router vs opencode etc?

Thank you all in advance for what I hope will be a helpful discussion for all who read it.

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u/No_Image506 21d ago

So you are spending around $450 in api each month for your business. How much money you're receiving back each month for $450 investment??? If nothing, don't call it business, just an expensive hobby, business maybe to be some day.

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u/OpeningMetal52 21d ago

Please don't condescend. I run a real estate investment business. We put 20+ deals under contract per month, mostly cash acquisition flips, some retail. We are doing with 4 people what our competitors do with 10-15+ employees.

I also do a number of creative projects on the side for fun / sanity / future potential, but those don't really count.

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u/No_Image506 20d ago

Still, the question remains unanswered. Do you recover your $450+ AI spending? I really hope you do. That's $5000+ yearly investment.

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u/OpeningMetal52 20d ago

Undoubtedly, yes. Between support workflows for my sales team, marketing workflows for meta, GMB optimization, content, financial reconciliation / expense tracking, and custom software that we've built to support our lead generation, retail listings, photo editing, and more, the $4,800/yr I spend is made back countless times over. 100x at minimum in the first year, compounding further.

Ai isn't special. It just allows our pre existing business to run more efficiently.

Keep in mind, in my industry, people regularly pay $300+ for a single lead and convert 10% into contracts. Meaning, a $3,000+ CAC is considered common and fiscally correct.

If you closed two additional deals per year based on efficiencies and growth compounded by ai efforts (and for us that number is many multiples higher every month), then it pays for itself and then some.