Computer Use Is 45x More Expensive Than APIs. Here's When To Use Each.

Reflex.dev ran the numbers and the result is sharp. Computer-use agents cost about 45x more in tokens than the same task done through a structured API call. Source measurement here . That is not a rounding error. That is the difference between a $20 daily budget lasting a workday and burning out before lunch. Why the gap is so wide Computer use is not just "an agent that clicks things." It is a loop with four expensive parts: Vision tokens. Every screenshot gets fed to the model as image tokens.