Process 10,000 API Requests at 50% Cost with Claude Batches

Claude's Message Batches API solves a critical problem for teams processing large document volumes: the cost and complexity of sending thousands of API requests individually. By grouping requests together and processing them asynchronously, you reduce costs by 50% compared to standard API calls—a discount that applies to both input and output tokens. Here's the workflow: Instead of calling the Claude API once per request (which is slow and expensive), you prepare a batch file containing up to 10,000 individual requests. Each request includes a custom ID for tracking. You submit the entire batch to Anthropic's API endpoint, and it processes all requests asynchronously—typically finishing in less than 1 hour, with a 24-hour maximum SLA. When complete, results are returned as a JSONL file, organized by request ID for easy matching. Practical example: A support team needs to classify 5,000 customer tickets into categories (bug, feature request, billing, account). Rather than sending each ticket individually (which would take hours and cost significantly more), they batch all 5,000 into one request. The API processes them overnight at half price, and the team downloads categorized results the next morning. Another use case: A company analyzing a repository of 1,000 legal contracts to extract liability terms. Batch processing makes this economically viable. The API also supports prompt caching, meaning if your requests share common context (like a system prompt or reference material), cache hits can stack with batch discounts for even greater savings. One caution: batches are truly asynchronous, so this approach is best for work without real-time requirements. If you need immediate responses, the synchronous API is still necessary.