Cost-conscious prompting — Knowledge data 2026 | Stack Overflow Developer Survey

75% changed prompts for quality, 38% for cost — quality optimization outpaces cost-cutting 2:1.

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Question

Have you changed how you write prompts or structure requests to reduce cost or improve output quality?

multi select
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v2026.1

Data

	Respondents	Percent
Yes, to improve output quality	422	75.4%
Yes, to reduce cost	215	38.4%
No	88	15.7%

Use this data

Citation

Response data is released under the ODbL 1.0, which asks that you attribute it.

Stack Exchange Inc. (2026). “Cost-conscious prompting”. Stack Overflow Developer Survey 2026. Licensed under ODbL 1.0. https://survey.stackoverflow.co/2026/knowledge/data/ai-cost-prompt

JSON

Structured for code, with the question, the year and the source url alongside the numbers.

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  "question": "Cost-conscious prompting",
  "dataId": "AICostPrompt",
  "asked": "Have you changed how you write prompts or structure requests to reduce cost or improve output quality?",
  "year": "2026",
  "url": "https://survey.stackoverflow.co/2026/knowledge/data/ai-cost-prompt",
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  "data": [
    {
      "response": "Yes, to improve output quality",
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      "pct": 0.754
    },
    {
      "response": "Yes, to reduce cost",
      "count": 215,
      "pct": 0.384
    },
    {
      "response": "No",
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      "pct": 0.157
    }
  ]
}

Markdown

A formatted table, ready to paste into a document, an issue or a prompt.

|  | Respondents | Percent |
| --- | ---: | ---: |
| Yes, to improve output quality | 422 | 75.4% |
| Yes, to reduce cost | 215 | 38.4% |
| No | 88 | 15.7% |

Spreadsheet

.csv is a plain text format which most spreadsheet software can open.