I burned all my tokens researching how to save tokens

# Summary A researcher at Quesma burned through their entire Claude Max subscription limit in 30 minutes while researching AI agent cost optimization, prompting them to redesign their approach. They solved the problem by orchestrating multiple AI models—Claude as the main harness with cheaper models like Opus, Sonnet, GPT-5.5, and Gemini as subagents—all sharing a unified memory system to distribute computational load across existing subscriptions. This model-orchestration pattern allowed them to conduct the same research more cost-effectively while gathering real-world data on AI token economics.