LLM Cost & Latency Optimization in Production

Keep user experience snappy without blowing up your bill.

1) Prompt hygiene

• Remove dead text and redundant instructions.
• Prefer short system prompts + concise few-shots.
• Use tool/form-based inputs where possible.

2) Caching and batching

• Semantic cache frequent Q&A.
• Batch requests when fan-out is predictable.
• Reuse retrieved context when safe.

3) Model routing

• Match model to task difficulty; default to a smaller model with an automatic fallback to a stronger one on low-confidence.
• Distill high-traffic flows to lighter models.

4) Timeouts and fallbacks

• Enforce per-call and end-to-end time budgets.
• Provide graceful fallbacks (cached summary, heuristics, or direct search).

5) Monitoring

• Track P50/P95 latency, cost/request, token usage, and error rates.
• Alert on spikes; ship config-driven rollouts and quick rollbacks.

Iterate with dashboards and budgets so cost and latency stay predictable.