AI AGENTS IN PRODUCTION: 12 LESSONS FROM TEAMS ACTUALLY RUNNING THEM

How much do multi-agent workflows really cost?

200 tasks/day
10 tasks/day1,000 tasks/day
Chat-only baseline$90/mo
Single-agent spend (4x chat)$360/mo
Multi-agent spend (15x chat)$1,350/mo

Multi-agent systems burn ≈ 15x the tokens of chat, single agents ≈ 4x - costs compound fast as daily task volume climbs.

iAnthropic Engineering, "How we built our multi-agent research system," Jun 2025 ToolPotion.ai