Got this reply on my last post and it’s a fair point, so here’s the longer answer. Yes, Claude Code caches your session, and a cache read costs about a tenth of normal input. But three things still add up. The first write isn’t cheap. Your memory files get written to the cache at the start of every session, and a cache write costs more than normal input. Reads are cheap, not free. That same memory gets read back on every call, and a session makes a lot of calls. Every tool call counts as one. The cache expires. Step away long enough and the next message writes the whole session again. So a big CLAUDE.md gets paid for once at the higher rate, then a little on every call after that, for the whole session. We measured this (disclosure, minniai.com/evidence is our site). Same 30 questions in Claude Code, two sessions a side, on a test memory before and after we split it with our hook on. Tokens went from 2,840,176 to 1,623,741, but cost only went from $0.83 to $0.57, because most of what we saved were cache reads, the cheapest kind. Other runs came in higher and lower. So caching softens it a lot. It just doesn’t make it go away. Do you clear between tasks or keep one long session going? submitted by /u/MinniLabs
Originally posted by u/MinniLabs on r/ClaudeCode
You must log in or # to comment.