# Factory Router

Automatically select the best model for each task.

Factory Router automatically chooses the best model for each Droid task. Instead of locking a session to one model, it evaluates the work in front of it and routes each task to the model with the best balance of quality, latency, and cost. It runs in the Droid CLI and Factory App, under the same Enterprise Controls as every other model.

## Why use Factory Router?

Use it when you want strong results without hand-picking a model for every workflow.

| Benefit | What Factory Router does |
| :------ | :----------------------------------------------- |
| **Best performance at lower cost** | In production, it delivers **43%** aggregate cost savings versus pricing the same workload at top-tier model rates, while holding frontier-level performance in Factory evaluations. |
| **Improved model selection** | Droid sends routine steps to faster, lower-cost models and reserves stronger models for work that needs deeper reasoning. |
| **Enterprise-ready controls** | The same org, project, and user-level model controls used across the Factory platform apply without change. |

## Availability

Factory Router is generally available in the Droid CLI and Factory App model selector, with no setup required. In some product surfaces, the same router appears as **Auto Model**; the canonical product and docs name is **Factory Router**.

## Reliability

Factory Router routes across multiple models, providers, and capacity sources, so sessions keep running when a provider degrades, hits rate limits, or constrains capacity. Factory evaluations put request reliability at 99.9%+, more than any single-provider path.

{/* sweep-allow: term-bullets */}

- **Provider failover.** If one provider path is unavailable, sessions continue through another healthy path.
- **Dedicated throughput.** Enterprise customers get reserved TPM for critical work instead of relying only on shared public capacity.
- **US-hosted open-source models.** Eligible work can route to US-hosted open-source models for cost-efficient or controlled options.

## Enterprise Controls

Admins manage Factory Router through the same governance system used for every other Factory-supported model, allowing or restricting it at the organization level like any other option.

For more on enterprise model controls, see [Enterprise Controls & Managed Settings](/enterprise/hierarchical-settings-and-org-control).

## FAQ

<FAQ>
  <FAQItem title="How does model routing work?">
    It routes per task, combining session-level and per-request decisions, and weighs prompt cache maintenance and the resulting savings heavily in its optimization. If the selected model struggles with a task or a provider degrades, it moves the session to a more capable model or another healthy provider path.
  </FAQItem>

  <FAQItem title="Can Factory Router be configured?">
    You can enable or disable it like any other model today, and Enterprise Controls add governance on top.
  </FAQItem>

  <FAQItem title="Are there benchmarks on its performance?">
    Yes. On Factory's enterprise engineering benchmarks it reaches 99% of Claude Opus 4.7's pass rate at 20% lower cost per session on Terminal-Bench 2, and 96% of its pass rate at 25% lower cost on [Legacy-Bench](/benchmarks/legacy-bench).
  </FAQItem>

  <FAQItem title="What are the cost benefits?">
    In production, measured as billed usage versus the same workload priced at top-tier model rates, aggregate cost is **43%** lower. The median session costs 81% less, and 61% of sessions are at least 80% cheaper, with frontier-level performance throughout. On benchmarks, cost per successful run is about 80% of a Claude Opus 4.7 baseline (80.5% on Terminal-Bench 2, 78.0% on Legacy-Bench).
  </FAQItem>
</FAQ>

<RelatedLinks>
  <RelatedLink href='/model-independence/byok' title='Custom Models (BYOK)'>
    Connect your own API keys, open source providers, or local models.
  </RelatedLink>
  <RelatedLink href='/enterprise/hierarchical-settings-and-org-control' title='Enterprise Controls & Managed Settings'>
    Govern which models are available to your organization.
  </RelatedLink>
</RelatedLinks>