Economy routes to open-weight models. Balanced mixes. Cinema picks the best regardless of cost.
Set a default per project; override per shot.
The regeneration ladder is the workflow this is built for: re-rolls drop to cheaper models while you lock composition, then one Cinema-tier pass for the final. Iterating at Cinema quality is the fastest way to burn a month's credits on frames you were always going to throw away.
Optimize Cost on the Budget page proposes cheaper routings with an honest quality-impact estimate — typically something like "−42% cost, negligible loss on 14 B-roll shots".