That Spotify post about cutting Claude Code tokens by 90% has been all over my feed, so I checked it against my own usage before installing anything. shunt blocks full Reads of files over 350 lines and has a cheaper model read them instead. The 90% is real, but it’s the mean of three big-read tests, not a whole bill. I went through four weeks of my transcripts, 173,637 calls and about $10k at API prices, and charged each read its full cost, including being carried in context until compaction. Big reads came to 0.8% of spend, while cache reads were 53%. My agents on tight file and line briefs were at 0.4%, but my ordinary sessions were only 0.7%, so mostly big reads were just never much of my bill. A repo full of 4,000 line files could look very different. Spotify’s post: https://engineering.atspotify.com/2026/9/portal-by-spotify-cut-my-claude-code-token-usage-by-90 My write-up has a small script that prints your number from local transcripts: https://maclulich.com/blog/spotify-90-percent-claude-code/ (my blog) Is anyone seeing big reads above a couple of percent? submitted by /u/oulu2006
Originally posted by u/oulu2006 on r/ClaudeCode