Big Idea

The argument in one line.

Effort does not make Claude smarter. It controls how long Claude works and how many decisions it makes without you, so the right level depends on the task, not on wanting the best result.

Who This Is For

Read if. Skip if.

READ IF YOU ARE…

You use Claude Code or Claude chat daily and leave effort on a single setting without knowing what it changes.
You run long, expensive Claude jobs and want to know when extra high or max is actually worth the usage-limit cost.
You build repeatable skills or reports with Claude and want a simple rule for when to switch levels mid-session.

SKIP IF…

You want benchmark numbers comparing models. This covers effort levels within Claude only, using a handful of Anthropic anecdotes.
You never touch effort settings and are happy with the default behavior.

TL;DR

The full version, fast.

Effort levels do not change how smart Claude is. The model choice does that. Effort sets how much time Claude spends reading, testing and checking, and how many decisions it makes without asking you. Low suits quick, iterative or polishing work where you stay in the loop. Medium is the default for everyday deliverables. High fits work where a mistake costs money or trust, and is best used at the end to verify. Extra high and max are for long, hard, critical jobs you walk away from. When unsure, ask four questions in order and stop at the first yes, or just use medium.

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Chapters

Where the time goes.

00:00 – 00:46

01 · Intro

Sets up the confusion around effort levels and promises a free mod that applies the right level automatically.

00:46 – 02:54

02 · What Effort Really Does

Effort is time and decisions, not intelligence. Uses Thariq's 12 hours versus 1 hour comparison and Lydia Hallie's point that effort also sets how involved you are.

02:54 – 05:02

03 · Level 1: Low

Three situations for low: iterating, simple tasks, polishing. Common tasks include brainstorming, quick rewrites, tagging, short summaries and rough drafts.

05:02 – 06:48

04 · Level 2: Medium

The default on Opus 5.5. Everyday writing, repurposing, meeting summaries, standard reports and quick research.

06:48 – 09:18

05 · Level 3: High

For verification and edge cases: checking numbers, open-ended analysis, risk review, fact checking and building skills.

09:18 – 11:29

06 · Level 4: Extra high and max

Only when you walk away, the job is long and hard, and the work is critical. Extra high first, max rarely.

11:29 – 12:30

07 · How to Pick the Right Level

Four ordered questions and a recap: effort is a dial for time and involvement.

Atomic Insights

Lines worth screenshotting.

Effort is not a quality dial. It is a dial for how much time Claude spends and how involved you want to be.
At low effort Claude comes back to ask you questions. At high effort it goes off and decides things for you.
Anthropic's own test: the same simple redesign took one minute on low and 28 minutes on max with a very similar outcome.
A bad prompt cannot be fixed with a higher effort level. Describing the task well is the foundation.
On the newest models, switching effort mid-chat no longer makes Claude reread the whole conversation at full price.
Build the first version on low, then switch to high at the end to verify everything. That way you only pay for high on the final check.
In one Anthropic test on low, Claude tried one approach and got it wrong every time. On high it tried two, noticed the mismatch, and got it right four out of five times.
Low effort does exactly what you ask and nothing more, so multi-part tasks need an explicit checklist.
Anthropic's docs say max adds significant cost for relatively small quality gains on most workloads, and can lead to overthinking.
Always start with extra high and only move to max when the task is truly critical.
If a medium output is weak, look at your context and prompt first. Only move up when Claude skipped a step or did not check its work.
Straightforward rule-following operational work gains the least from more effort.

Takeaway

Effort sets time and involvement, not quality

WHAT TO LEARN

Pick the effort level by how involved you want to be and what a mistake would cost, not by wanting the best possible answer.

02What Effort Really Does

Effort controls how much Claude reads, tests and double checks, and how many decisions it makes without asking you. Model choice controls how smart it is.
A bad prompt cannot be rescued by a higher level, so describe the task well first.

03Level 1: Low

Use low for iterating together, simple tasks and polishing, because you react faster to a quick first version and steer it.
Low does exactly what you ask and nothing more, so give multi-part tasks a clear checklist.

04Level 2: Medium

Use medium as the default for everyday writing, repurposing, meeting summaries and routine reports where done is clearly defined.
Move up from medium only when Claude skipped a step or did not check its work. Fix the prompt and context first.

05Level 3: High

Use high where a mistake costs money, trust or a decision, and for a final verification pass on work built at lower effort.
High also suits building or fixing skills, since a skill repeats any mistake every time it runs.

06Level 4: Extra high and max

Reserve extra high and max for long, hard, critical jobs you walk away from. Start with extra high, and treat max as rare.
Prompts matter more at these levels, because an unclear task can run for hours and still produce a poor output.

07How to Pick the Right Level

Ask four questions in order and stop at the first yes: back and forth or simple, costly hidden mistake, long unattended critical job, otherwise medium.

Glossary

Terms worth knowing.

Effort level: A setting in Claude (low, medium, high, extra high, max) that controls how much work Claude puts into a task and how many decisions it makes on its own, separate from which model you pick.
In the loop: Staying involved while Claude works, reviewing early drafts and steering, rather than handing off the whole job and checking back later.
Extra high: The level between high and max. Described in the video as a cheaper version of max that suits long, critical tasks.

Resources

Things they pointed at.

00:00productClaude Effort Optimizer mod (free) ↗

00:00linkSpending your effort (Anthropic, Thariq Shihipar) ↗

00:00linkClaude Code effort level and model selection (Anthropic, Lydia Hallie) ↗

06:40productAI Accelerator ↗

Quotables

Lines you could clip.

11:40

“Effort isn't a quality dial, it's a dial for time and how involved you want to be.”

single sentence that corrects a common misconception→ TikTok hook↗ Tweet quote

The Script

Word for word.

Read-along

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Entropic just released a new article on how to actually use effort levels. And while many people assume the higher the better and simply never use low or always just put it on high, it's actually much more nuanced than that. And choosing the right effort level can make a big impact on output quality, token consumption and speed.

So in this video, I'll explain what effort actually does based on Entropic's own research, show you exactly which level to use for which use case and show you why you probably need to use low a lot more. and give away a free mod that helps you apply the best effort level to your prompts automatically. Now, if you don't know me yet, I'm Ben.

I'm a three -time founder and now run an AI agency and one of the largest AI communities for professionals and business owners, where I teach how to use AI to actually automate work or build an AI business. So what actually are these effort levels? We of course have low, medium, high, extra high, and max.

Now, many people think it's about how smart Claude is, but how smart depends much more on the model you pick, like Opus, Samsung. or Haiku. Effort, on the other hand, decides how much time and work Cloth puts into your task.

Tariq, who works on the Cloth code team at Anthropic, explains it with a simple comparison. If someone gives you 12 hours for a task, you probably assume they want you to just do it and try really hard by yourself. But if they give you just one hour for that same task, you probably assume they want a decent first version and expect to iterate from there.

And Effort works in a very similar way. So at higher Effort, Cloth reads more. tests more and double checks its work more before it comes back to you.

But as Lydia Hawley from the Clot Code team says, it means more than just thinking time. It also means it makes more decisions on its own, while at a lower effort, it would rather come back and ask you a question. And that means effort is also a dial for how involved you want to be.

On low, Clot keeps coming back to you, so you stay in the loop. And on high, Clot goes off and decides things for you, which is great when you're not around, but it also means Clot makes more choices for you. which is not always ideal.

So although many people assume the higher, the better, this is really not the case and why it's so good to understand what effort level to actually use for which type of use case, which is exactly what I'll cover in this video. Now, I've also built a mod that automatically analyzes your prompts and notifies you whenever you're likely using the wrong effort level for a task, which you can download and use for free by going to the first link in the description.

You can just throw in the zip file into the Cloud Code tab and tell it to install this mod for you. And now every time you throw... in a prompt and it detects you're likely using the wrong effort level for it it'll give you a pop -up with a suggestion on the new effort level which you can then just click to apply or you can even just decide to let this apply it by itself now i've been using this and it's been really useful so again you can download it for free in the first link in description now there's one more interesting thing and tropic found that's really important which is that a bad prompt can't be fixed with a higher effort level describing your task well is always important as the foundation starting with level one low Now, Tharik's own rule for using low is for when I want quick responses that are in the loop.

Now, most people never use low, but low is actually a very useful effort level. So you want to use low really in three situations. First, when you plan to iterate on something to get a width clot because you can react to a first version far faster and steer it in the right direction far faster.

I, for example, now use low when prepping YouTube videos because I really want to be in the loop here and steer it in the right direction. And it actually really speeds up the work. flow and many people still think low is just dumb mode but it's really not the case.

And second of course you want to use low when a task is just simple. In Tarek's own test for example he says that the same simple redesign took one minute on low and 28 minutes on max with a very similar outcome. And a third use case is when you're polishing something a higher effort level already made.

So for example you do the hard first version on high and then switch to low for the small tweaks. So let's say you create a report or a dashboard on high and once you get a good initial version, you make the tweaks to the layouts, the copies and structure with low.

And with the newest models, switching effort in the middle of a chat no longer makes Cloth reread your entire conversation at full price. So it doesn't cost you anything extra. It will actually save you costs because you're not using high for small tweaks.

So some common tasks you probably want to use low for are brainstorming use cases. For example, something like give me 15 subject line options for this newsletter because you want options fast and you'll steer it anyway. Also quick rewrites or iterations.

For example, make this client email friendlier and half as long because it's simple and clear. Then sorting and tagging use cases. For example, tag the support tickets by issue type because in this case, cloud is following clear rules and volume matters much more than depth.

Then also short summaries. Again, summarizing is a simple task for AI. And lastly, rough first drafts.

For example, sketch an outline for next week's newsletter because again, you will change it anyway. Now, one thing to keep in mind Keep in mind, low effort also means Cloud does exactly what you ask and nothing more.

So if a task has several parts, Entropic recommends giving Cloud a clear or simple checklist. Now, level two is medium. Now, Tharik says medium is for most of his regular work and Entropic's official guide goes even further.

For most tasks, you should use the model's default and on Opus 5 .5, that default is medium. So you want to use medium really for most use cases when you can clearly define what done looks like and you'll review the result at the end. once now in practice you probably want to use medium for the following tasks your everyday writing tasks for example write a follow -up email to oscar from these call notes and our pricing it's just a normal deliverable so the default is more than enough also repurposing use cases for example turn this youtube video into a linkedin post because again the context is already in the source so cloud doesn't really need to dig a lot deeper medium also works really well for anything around your meetings for example summarize this call with the decisions and the next steps and the Same goes for your standard reporting, like a weekly update or a client report that follows the same format every time because cloud already knows what good looks like.

And lastly, quick research like getting up to speed on a client before a call. In short, medium should really be your default for most everyday tasks. And if a medium output isn't good, Lydia's advice is to not turn off the effort right away.

Your first instinct should actually be to look at the context or prompt you gave it and only move up when cloud actually skipped a step or didn't check its work. Now, before continuing very quickly, if you enjoy this type of content, you'll really enjoy my AI Accelerator, where you'll get access to my 30 -day cloud course that takes you from beginner to pro in less than one hour a day.

We also have a full course on growing an AI business based on everything me and my team have learned over the last three years. We have unlimited one -on -one live AI consulting with AI experts and a big library of skills, templates, and resources across all business departments. So if you want to dive deeper into AI, definitely check it out in the second link in the description.

Now, level three is high. And Tharik's rule is a high is for work where verification is important or there are edge cases. So you basically want to use high when a mistake would actually cost you like money, trust or a decision made on wrong numbers.

Second, you can also use it when a task has lots of edge cases, like checking the terms in a contract or the figures in a financial report. For example, in one of Entropic's own tests, Claude had to analyze a data set and on low, it just tried one approach and got it wrong every single time. And on high, it tried two approaches.

and noticed that the answers didn't match and figured out why and then got it right four out of five times. And thirdly, you can also use high at the end to check and test your work. That's actually how Thariq works himself.

He builds the first version on low, goes back and forth on low and only switches to high at the end to verify everything. So some common tasks you might want to consider using high for, firstly, for checking numbers across different sources. For example, check this month's revenue report against Stripe and flag any...

thing that doesn't match because in this case one wrong number is easy to miss so you want cloud to actually check every figure comprehensively now secondly for open -ended analysis where it's really not clear yet what cloud should look into for example why did our churn go up last order because in this case there's no set path so you want cloud to actually explore a few angles to figure it out thirdly you can use it for reviewing for risk for example review this contract and flag anything unusual in the payment terms again Again, contracts tend to have a lot of edge cases and a mistake here can really cost you.

You can also use it for fact checking or for going through long documents like a 50 page report because in both these use cases, it's easy to miss something and you want cloud to be thorough. Now, another good use case is the one from Tharik, right? Which is verifying and testing outputs generated at lower efforts.

For example, once your monthly report that you build on low looks right, you switch to high and you say, check every number in this report against the source data and fix any... that's off because that way you only pay for high on the final check and then lastly a good use case in my experience for high is building or fixing your skills because a skill runs the same way every time so any mistake in it repeats every time too so that's why you want cloud to test it properly before you rely on it so in short you don't just want to use high because a task is long again in entropix results straightforward rule following work like operational tasks gain the least for more effort so it's much more about how much judgment and checking it needs.

And then we have level four, extra high and max. Now I'm taking these two together because they're for the same kind of work. And Tariq says he uses max basically only if I want zero input, meaning no input from you at all.

Now using these effort levels can mean Claude takes hours on a single task. So you want to use these levels really only when all of the three following points are true. First, you just want to walk away for a couple of hours and not be there to answer any questions.

Second, the job is very long. long and hard. And third, the work is critical.

So the quality matters more than the time it spends and your usage limit. If even one of those isn't true, you probably want to use high instead. Because with these effort levels, Clot assumes it has to figure out everything on its own.

So it will make lots of decisions for you. It will double check a lot and prompts become even more important at these higher effort levels. Because if you haven't described a task well, it can go on for hours and not even give you a good output.

Now, some tasks you could consider extra high and max for our really long research tasks you want to run unattended for example go through every support call and ticket from the last year and give me a full report with the top reasons people cancel a breakdown of our ideal customer profile and a product development roadmap i actually use this one myself it's a really long job but extremely valuable for decision making now second use case can be a correctness critical work for example review this 50 page agreement before we sign it and flag everything that could hurt us.

Now, you're preventing a real risk here, so the extra cost might be worth it. And lastly, when you want what Tharik calls Claude's best one -shot. For example, create our investor pitch deck from our metrics, strategy dock, and pass decks.

Now, in this case, it's high stakes, so you want the most complete version on the first try, and then you can always iterate at a lower effort. But again, just keep in mind that Entropic's own docks say that on most workloads, max specifically adds significant cost for relatively small quality gains. on some tasks it can even lead to overthinking where cloud keeps going and the results actually get worse now extra high is basically a cheaper version of max so always start with extra high and only go to max when it's really critical so for most people watching max should be very rare so in short whenever you're not sure which level to use you can just ask yourself the following four questions in this order and stop at the first yet will you go back and forth with cloud on this or is it a simple task then you want to use low a hidden mistake cost you like money a client or a wrong decision then use high are you handing off a long hard and critical job and walking away then use extra high or max and for everything else then just use medium which is the default on opus 5 .5 and if you're unsure again just use medium so the main takeaway really is effort isn't a quality dial it's a dial for time and how involved you want to be so you only pay for more effort when the task actually requires it again if you want to download the free

that automatically applies the effort levels to your prompts, you can download it in the first link in the description. And if you wanna learn more about my AI Accelerator and my full Cloud courses, you can check out the second link in the description below. Thank you so much for watching.

If you got any value out of it, I highly appreciate a like and a subscribe. It really does help me. And if you wanna learn more about working with Cloud, you can check out the video here above.

The Hook

The bait, then the rug-pull.

Most people assume a higher effort level means a better answer. This breakdown of Anthropic's own guidance shows why that is wrong, and gives four questions that pick the right level for any task.

Frameworks