3.2 — Differentiating Between Claude Model Types

CCAO-F Domain 3 · Task 3.2

What You Need to Know

Three model families form a real trade-off of speed and cost against depth:

Tier	Role
Haiku	Fastest, lowest-cost; high-volume, latency-sensitive, routine tasks
Sonnet	Best combination of speed and intelligence; balanced everyday default
Opus	Most capable reasoning; complex, high-stakes work

No tier is “the good one”. Each is the right choice for work that matches its strengths.

Reading the Signals

• Lighter-tier signals: high volume, routine/repetitive, simple transformation (reformat, extract, standardise), speed matters, individually low-stakes
• Most-capable signals: ambiguity, contradiction to untangle, judgement with consequences, complex synthesis, wrong subtle conclusion costs more than the extra time
• When neither dominates → balanced middle

Size does not decide; the kind of work does. Standardising a long list is lighter-tier work however many rows. Reconciling two disagreeing reports is capable-tier work however short the final page.

The Model Picker

Choose in the chat interface; change at any point; applies from the next response. Routine ground-clearing can run on a lighter tier and the hard synthesis on the most capable, inside one piece of work.

Exam Traps

• Choosing the most capable model for everything because the work is important
• Sending work that needs depth to the fastest tier because it is “just writing”
• Accepting a claim that the lighter tier gives the same quality on demanding work