AI / Claude Models Basics Interview Questions
What is the Messages Batches API and when should you use it?
The Message Batches API allows you to submit a large number of Claude API requests asynchronously in a single batch, receiving results once all requests are processed. It is designed for large-scale, non-time-sensitive workloads.
| Feature | Standard Messages API | Message Batches API |
|---|---|---|
| Execution | Synchronous — response returned immediately | Asynchronous — submit batch, poll for results |
| Pricing | Standard per-token pricing | ~50% of standard pricing |
| Max output tokens | Standard limits | Up to 300k with output-300k beta header (selected models) |
| Latency | Real-time (<1 min typical) | Hours — not suitable for real-time apps |
| Max requests per batch | N/A | 10,000 requests per batch |
| Use case | Interactive apps, chatbots, real-time tools | Data processing, evals, bulk content generation |
# Submitting a batch of requests batch = client.messages.batches.create( requests=[ { "custom_id": "request-1", "params": { "model": "claude-opus-4-8", "max_tokens": 1024, "messages": [{"role": "user", "content": "Summarise: ..."}] } }, # ... up to 10,000 requests ] ) # Poll for results results = client.messages.batches.results(batch.id)
Models supported for 300k batch output: Claude Opus 4.8, Opus 4.7, Opus 4.6, Sonnet 5, and Sonnet 4.6 support up to 300k output tokens per request in a batch when the output-300k-2026-03-24 beta header is included.
What is the approximate cost saving when using the Message Batches API compared to the standard Messages API?
What is the maximum number of requests that can be submitted in a single Message Batches API call?
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