Don't want to manually tier models? I get it. OpenRouter offers an automatic routing option. Set your model to openrouter/openrouter/auto and OpenRouter picks the best model for each prompt based on complexity, cost, and latency.
This works well as a starting point. The tradeoff is less control. You can't guarantee which model handles sensitive conversations. For most personal setups, auto-routing gives you 70-90% of the cost savings of manual tiering with none of the configuration overhead. Once your usage patterns stabilize, switch to manual tiering for tighter control. Start simple, optimize later.