Cost Efficiency
ShipLens is designed to minimize LLM costs without sacrificing analysis quality. Every design decision considers the cost-quality tradeoff.
Cost Optimization Strategies
1. Deterministic Triage
The single biggest cost saver. Before any LLM call, every commit passes through rule-based triage:
| Triage Result | LLM Cost | % of Commits |
|---|---|---|
| Shallow (merge, CI, docs) | $0.00 | ~20–30% |
| Standard (Haiku) | $0.001–0.003 | ~65–75% |
| Deep (Sonnet, agentic) | $0.01–0.50 | ~1–5% |
Impact: Saves 20–30% of total LLM costs by skipping trivial commits entirely.
2. Model Tiering
Using Haiku (~$1/M tokens) instead of Sonnet (~$9/M tokens average) for standard analysis provides a ~9× cost reduction on the majority of commits.
3. Context Capping
Project context sent to the LLM is capped at 2,000 characters. This prevents context window bloat and keeps input token counts predictable.
4. Diff Compression
Commit diffs are intelligently compressed before sending to the LLM:
- Remove redundant whitespace changes
- Truncate very long diffs to the most informative sections
- Preserve file boundaries and key changes
5. Deep Analysis Cost Cap
Agentic deep analysis has a hard cost cap of $0.50 per commit. If the tool-use loop approaches this limit, analysis stops and returns partial results. This prevents runaway costs on unusually complex commits.
6. Local Embeddings
Embeddings run locally via Bumblebee instead of using an external API (like OpenAI's embedding endpoint). For a project with thousands of files, this saves $5–50 in embedding costs.
7. Scoring Independence
The entire scoring engine runs locally with zero LLM cost. Re-scoring, preset changes, and configuration experiments are completely free.
Cost Breakdown by Team Size
5-Person Team (~250 commits/week)
| Operation | Weekly | Monthly |
|---|---|---|
| Commit analysis | $0.50–1.50 | $2–6 |
| Weekly digest (1) | $0.01 | $0.04 |
| 1:1 reports (5) | $0.05–0.25 | $0.20–1.00 |
| Total | $0.56–1.76 | $2.24–7.04 |
20-Person Team (~1,000 commits/week)
| Operation | Weekly | Monthly |
|---|---|---|
| Commit analysis | $2–6 | $8–24 |
| Weekly digests (4 teams) | $0.04 | $0.16 |
| 1:1 reports (20) | $0.20–1.00 | $0.80–4.00 |
| Total | $2.24–7.04 | $8.96–28.16 |
50-Person Team (~2,500 commits/week)
| Operation | Weekly | Monthly |
|---|---|---|
| Commit analysis | $5–15 | $20–60 |
| Weekly digests (10 teams) | $0.10 | $0.40 |
| 1:1 reports (50) | $0.50–2.50 | $2.00–10.00 |
| Total | $5.60–17.60 | $22.40–70.40 |
Cost vs. Value
At $5–30/month for a typical team, ShipLens costs less than a single cup of coffee per developer per month while providing:
- Deep understanding of every commit
- Transparent, configurable scoring
- Work pattern insights
- Automated coaching reports
- Gaming and quality detection
The ROI comes from better 1:1 conversations, earlier problem detection, and data-driven team management — not from replacing human judgment.