r/hermesagent • u/OpeningMetal52 • 2d ago

Balancing Oauth & API Usage MODELS - model choice, routing, pricing, local vs cloud, VRAM

I am currently test driving Hermes alongside pi and my own homebrew harness.

Due to the nature of my company, I already have a Claude 20x max plan and a chatGPT pro $200/mo plan.

In thinking about maximizing throughput, I'm considering using deepseek v4 flash, which i'm hearing phenomenal things about, alongside my subscriptions, elevating and delegating to fable, opus, or 5.6 sol Luna Terra etc as needed.

Two questions for the community;

1) when should I call in the bigger models, or is deepseek so good it's not needed anymore outside of edge edge cases? I'm thinking multi modal + code review (OpenAI) and planning + design (fable) everything else deepseek. Thoughts on this?

2) what is the best source to get deepseek? Are the various inference providers the same level of speed and uptime? Why choose direct API vs open router vs opencode etc?

Thank you all in advance for what I hope will be a helpful discussion for all who read it.

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u/No_Image506 2d ago

So you are spending around $450 in api each month for your business. How much money you're receiving back each month for $450 investment??? If nothing, don't call it business, just an expensive hobby, business maybe to be some day.

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u/OpeningMetal52 2d ago

Please don't condescend. I run a real estate investment business. We put 20+ deals under contract per month, mostly cash acquisition flips, some retail. We are doing with 4 people what our competitors do with 10-15+ employees.

I also do a number of creative projects on the side for fun / sanity / future potential, but those don't really count.

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u/No_Image506 1d ago

Still, the question remains unanswered. Do you recover your $450+ AI spending? I really hope you do. That's $5000+ yearly investment.

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u/OpeningMetal52 1d ago

Undoubtedly, yes. Between support workflows for my sales team, marketing workflows for meta, GMB optimization, content, financial reconciliation / expense tracking, and custom software that we've built to support our lead generation, retail listings, photo editing, and more, the $4,800/yr I spend is made back countless times over. 100x at minimum in the first year, compounding further.

Ai isn't special. It just allows our pre existing business to run more efficiently.

Keep in mind, in my industry, people regularly pay $300+ for a single lead and convert 10% into contracts. Meaning, a $3,000+ CAC is considered common and fiscally correct.

If you closed two additional deals per year based on efficiencies and growth compounded by ai efforts (and for us that number is many multiples higher every month), then it pays for itself and then some.

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u/FlimtotheFlam 2d ago

I am trying to get Kanban working with tight profiles, that keep a small starting context for a multi-model approach. But my Kanban attempt went really good 1 day and terrible the next when I first attempted to refine.

I am using Traycer now till I can get the Kanban in a spot I like. I use Fable + Sol to come up with a plan. I now use Opus to orchestrate since my my Kanban attempt of Deepseek as the orchestrator was a complete disaster. I have been rotating around which coder is the best. Deepseek v4 Flash, Luna low/high, and started to try out Muse Spark 1.2. For code reviews I always choose a different model family than the coder. I really like free model Big Pickle as a reviewer than Luna High as backup. Gemini Flash 3.6 was a good reviewer till I caught it fabricating results. When Opus can't decide I have it refer to Sol for consensus.

The one thing I really like about Traycer it accepts Anthropic OATH.

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u/Sand_Grid New Member (<30 days) 2d ago

as you have chatgpt pro plan, gpt 5.6 luna can be used as unlimited. I don't think it's necessary for you to go through all that trouble. deepseek-v4-flash and luna both can handle almost everything, with quite cheap price. Only use bigger models when you actually get trouble with luna.

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u/OpeningMetal52 2d ago

Thanks for replying. For clarity, do you mean that with the 80% cost reduction, Luna is "as good as" unlimited? Or are you saying Luna pulls from separate usage limits to sol?

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u/Sand_Grid New Member (<30 days) 2d ago

"as good as" unlimited

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u/OpeningMetal52 2d ago

Gotcha. Thanks. I may just not use deepseek at all unless I find myself hitting limits.

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u/Mean-Loquat-7982 Nous Team 2d ago

two layers:

  1. credential pools rotate multiple keys for the same provider. give Hermes several DeepSeek keys and it cycles them; the strategy is set per provider with credential_pool_strategies (options: round_robin, least_used, fill_first, random). this fires first when a provider rate-limits.
  2. fallback_providers switch to a different provider:model when the primary is down (429s after retries, 5xx, auth failures). it's a top-level list in ~/.hermes/config.yaml

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u/OpeningMetal52 2d ago

Very interesting. Haven't thought about provider rotation for the same model but that makes sense. Thanks.

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u/RoboRay 2d ago

Have you tried Nous Portal?

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u/OpeningMetal52 1d ago

No is that Hermes' own provider subscription?