Budget for the multi-agent tax before you go multi-agent: ~58% overhead independent, ~285% centralized

Digital Applied·medium signal

Production data in 2026 shows independent multi-agent setups incur roughly 58% extra token overhead and centralized ones around 285% versus a single agent, and orchestrator-worker accounts for ~70% of deployments. The lesson: multi-agent is a cost decision, not a default — quantify the token multiplier against the quality gain before splitting a task across agents. Most teams over-architect; start with the simplest topology that fits.