The Swarm Paradox

Executive Summary

Multi-agent architectures are marketed as the future. Our benchmarks show otherwise.

The Cost

Configuration	Hourly Cost	Output Quality
Single Agent	$2.40	8.2/10
4 Agents	$9.80	7.1/10
16 Agents	$42.00	5.4/10

The Problem

More agents = more coordination overhead = less actual work done.

Key Findings

• 312% cost increase for negative productivity gains
• Agents spend 65% of time coordinating, not working
• Diminishing returns kick in at 2-3 agents

Recommendation

Start with one agent. Scale only when you can证明 the overhead is worth it.