Aider is already one of the leaner agents; its remaining costs live in the repo map and model choice. Tune --map-tokens, use /clear between tasks, and set --weak-model so commit messages and summaries stop billing at frontier rates.
Aider natively supports a second, cheaper model for commit messages and history summarization. It's a one-flag change that removes frontier pricing from work that never needed it.
The default repo-map budget may be oversized for your project, or wasted on a monorepo where you only touch one package. Right-sizing it cuts every single request.
Aider keeps chat history in context until you clear it. A /clear when switching tasks is free money.
The provider-agnostic tactics (prompt caching, retry budgets, batch APIs) are in the general playbook.
It routes auxiliary calls (commit messages, chat summarization) to a cheaper model while the main model handles code. On busy days those auxiliary calls are a meaningful share of requests, at a tenth or less of the price.
Yes. It's included in context to orient the model. That's usually worth it, but its size is tunable with --map-tokens, and oversizing it on a big repo is a silent per-request tax.
The structural version of all of this: run Aider on a flat monthly price, and the bill stops being a variable to manage. 2-minute Aider setup → · Best models for Aider →