Claude Code Is Expensive by Default — Here's How to Fix That

Claude Code defaults to Opus 4.6 for most tasks. That's the right call for hard problems. It's the wrong call for "what does this function do?" asked 50 times a day. If you've checked your Anthropic bill after a week of heavy Claude Code usage, you know the math. This is how to fix it without losing the quality on tasks that actually need it. Why Claude Code gets expensive Claude Code is an agentic coding assistant. It reads files, runs commands, makes multiple API calls per user action, and often sends large context windows on each call. A typical session might make 10-30 API calls — repo-map reads, edit confirmations, error handling, follow-ups. All at Opus pricing by default. The problem isn't Claude Code. It's sending every call — including trivial ones — to the most expensive model. The OpenAI-compatible option Claude Code supports custom OpenAI-compatible API endpoints. You can point it at any endpoint that speaks the OpenAI chat completions format. In your Claude Code settings: