Batch API vs Real-Time: When Async Saves 50%
Batch APIs offer large discounts for asynchronous jobs. Learn when to route work to batch and when real-time is worth the premium.
If a job can wait 24 hours, you shouldn't pay real-time prices for it. Batch endpoints exist precisely for that.
What a batch API is
Batch endpoints accept a large set of requests and process them asynchronously, usually within a window (commonly up to 24 hours). In exchange for the delay, they offer a significant discount versus real-time pricing.
When batch is the obvious choice
- Backfills and migrations
- Nightly content generation
- Bulk classification or summarization
- Any job where a few hours of latency is acceptable
When real-time is worth the premium
- Interactive chat and live assistants
- User-facing responses where latency breaks the experience
- Low-volume, latency-sensitive calls
A practical split
Route by latency tolerance, not by task type. The same summarization task might be batch at night and real-time during a live demo.
Cost impact
Moving even 30–40% of eligible volume to batch often cuts overall API spend noticeably, because the discount compounds across tokens and calls.
Quick checklist
- List jobs that can tolerate delay
- Route them to batch endpoints
- Keep only latency-sensitive work real-time
Related reading
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