Voiceflow : How to pick models and minimize costs ๐ก
Hey everyone! If you are a beginner and want to be efficient as possible with your credit when it comes to using voiceflow agents according to their credit system, Here are voiceflow's guides and suggestions: > What uses credits? - Messages - LLM usage - Voice call minutes - Text-to-speech > What doesnโt? - Functions (no credit drain!) - Knowledge base queries > Monitor usage with Analytics: - Use the credit usage chart to track what's eating your credits. - Check the prompt usage chart to see which prompts get triggered most. ๐ง Choosing the Right AI Model: It's all about balancing cost, capability and latency when it comes to picking the right model for the task. It can be tricky โ especially for voice-based agents. Hereโs a general breakdown of LLM types: 1. Lightweight & Cheap (e.g., GPT-4o mini, Claude Haiku) : Great for basic tasks, fast and low-cost. 2. Balanced & Smart - More capable (e.g., GPT-4o, Claude Sonnet) : Ideal for reasoning, KB-heavy workflows, and accurate step-by-step instructions. 3. Most Powerful - Heavy (e.g., GPT-4, Claude Opus) : Best for tough questions or deep reasoning โ but expensive! โVoiceflow recommends not using legacy models such as GPT-3.5 Turbo for building agents. ๐งช Test & Experiment When switching models: - Test thoroughly - Monitor transcripts - Iterate & scale what works Go to the project -> analytics when it comes to monitoring your agent. Cheaper โ better. Choose intentionally. Some steps are worth the higher cost for better quality. ๐ Bonus: Free Proactive Messages Ever wonder how to make your webchat widget pop with a proactive message (like โHi there! Need help?โ)? Good news โ proactive messages are free and donโt cost credits, since they exist outside your project logic. I attached the code for the proactive messages provided by voiceflow.Make sure to wrap it with setTimeout(function() { your chat widget code}, 350). Otherwise it wonโt display due to widget loading delay.