> Your background bots don't need to be fast, they need to be cheap and right. Flex Mode routes patient work through the same model, on a cheaper lane.

Canonical: https://chattic.us/features/flex-mode/

# Your bots don’t need to be fast. They need to be cheap and right.

A named teammate’s scheduled and background work isn’t like chat — nobody’s watching it happen. Flex Mode is how Chatticus is being built to notice that difference and spend it: work that isn’t due for hours or days can run through a slower, cheaper lane on the exact same model, instead of paying for interactive speed it doesn’t need.

“Do not replace the model with a cheaper brain. Give the same brain more time.”

## How it works

*Triggered*

### A routine kicks off with no one waiting.

A scheduled task or event trigger starts the work. There's no chat window open and no spinner — nobody's staring at the first token.

*Queued with patience*

### If the deadline allows it, it waits in the cheap lane.

The same request goes out on OpenAI or Anthropic's Batch or Flex lane instead of the interactive one — slower to start, priced for patience.

*Delivered on schedule*

### The result lands before the deadline.

Same model, same prompt, same tools — just paid for like scheduled work instead of a live conversation.

*The two numbers*

## What this actually saves

OpenAI and Anthropic both discount their Batch and Flex lanes by about 50% — but that’s 50% off eligible token spend specifically, not 50% off the whole bot farm’s bill. Total savings depend on how much of your spend is inference in the first place, and how much of that inference can actually wait.

**A worked example.** 60% inference × 70% eligible × 50% off = 21% total savings.

Still real money — just not the number you’d get by rounding “up to 50% off” and applying it to the whole bill.

*How the lane gets chosen*

## Scheduled work, priced for patience

**Work moves through queues.** A named teammate's background work runs asynchronously — turns move through queues and journals with server-sent progress, not a live socket waiting on a reply.

**Costed against real numbers.** The cost math and provider facts — OpenAI and Anthropic's Batch pricing, rate limits, and completion windows, checked against their current docs and worked through with real numbers.

**The scheduler picks the lane.** The scheduler decides, per task, whether there's enough slack before the deadline to route it through Batch or Flex instead of the interactive API.

[Read the full argument](/wiki/cost-vs-sla)