diff --git a/backend/src/database/repositories/memberRepository.ts b/backend/src/database/repositories/memberRepository.ts
index eea1e54379..60282c3bce 100644
--- a/backend/src/database/repositories/memberRepository.ts
+++ b/backend/src/database/repositories/memberRepository.ts
@@ -253,9 +253,16 @@ class MemberRepository {
 
     const totalCount = await options.database.sequelize.query(
       `
+        WITH top_candidates AS (
+            SELECT "memberId", "toMergeId", similarity, "activityEstimate"
+            FROM "memberToMerge"
+            WHERE similarity IS NOT NULL
+            ORDER BY similarity DESC, "activityEstimate" DESC
+            LIMIT 5000
+        )
         SELECT
             COUNT(*) AS count
-        FROM "memberToMerge" mtm
+        FROM top_candidates mtm
         ${membersJoin}
         WHERE EXISTS (
             SELECT 1 FROM "memberSegmentsAgg" ms
@@ -364,6 +371,13 @@ class MemberRepository {
 
     const mems = await options.database.sequelize.query(
       `
+        WITH top_candidates AS (
+            SELECT "memberId", "toMergeId", similarity, "activityEstimate"
+            FROM "memberToMerge"
+            WHERE similarity IS NOT NULL
+            ORDER BY similarity DESC, "activityEstimate" DESC
+            LIMIT 5000
+        )
         SELECT
             mtm."memberId" AS id,
             mtm."toMergeId",
@@ -373,7 +387,7 @@ class MemberRepository {
             m.attributes->'avatarUrl'->>'default' as "primaryAvatarUrl",
             m2."displayName" as "toMergeDisplayName",
             m2.attributes->'avatarUrl'->>'default' as "toMergeAvatarUrl"
-        FROM "memberToMerge" mtm
+        FROM top_candidates mtm
         JOIN members m ON m.id = mtm."memberId"
         JOIN members m2 ON m2.id = mtm."toMergeId"
         WHERE EXISTS (
@@ -384,7 +398,6 @@ class MemberRepository {
             SELECT 1 FROM "memberSegmentsAgg" ms2
             WHERE ms2."memberId" = mtm."toMergeId" AND ms2."segmentId" IN (:segmentIds)
         )
-        AND mtm.similarity IS NOT NULL
           ${memberFilter}
           ${similarityFilter}
           ${displayNameFilter}
diff --git a/services/apps/merge_suggestions_worker/src/types.ts b/services/apps/merge_suggestions_worker/src/types.ts
index 167dea0bab..fa1166b17d 100644
--- a/services/apps/merge_suggestions_worker/src/types.ts
+++ b/services/apps/merge_suggestions_worker/src/types.ts
@@ -104,6 +104,7 @@ export interface IProcessMergeOrganizationSuggestionsWithLLM {
 export interface IProcessMergeMemberSuggestionsWithLLM {
   similarity: ISimilarityFilter
   tenantId: string
+  modelId?: string
 }
 
 export interface ISimilarMemberOpensearchResult {
diff --git a/services/apps/merge_suggestions_worker/src/workflows/mergeMembersWithLLM.ts b/services/apps/merge_suggestions_worker/src/workflows/mergeMembersWithLLM.ts
index 03f0af6b1b..e3fa45c0ee 100644
--- a/services/apps/merge_suggestions_worker/src/workflows/mergeMembersWithLLM.ts
+++ b/services/apps/merge_suggestions_worker/src/workflows/mergeMembersWithLLM.ts
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 import { continueAsNew, proxyActivities } from '@temporalio/workflow'
 
-import { LLMSuggestionVerdictType, MemberMergeSuggestionTable } from '@crowd/types'
+import { LLMSuggestionVerdictType, LlmModelType, MemberMergeSuggestionTable } from '@crowd/types'
 
 import * as commonActivities from '../activities/common'
 import * as memberActivities from '../activities/memberMergeSuggestions'
@@ -24,7 +24,7 @@ export async function mergeMembersWithLLM(
 ): Promise<void> {
   const SUGGESTIONS_PER_RUN = 10
   const REGION = 'us-east-1'
-  const MODEL_ID = 'us.anthropic.claude-sonnet-4-20250514-v1:0'
+  const MODEL_ID = args.modelId ?? LlmModelType.CLAUDE_SONNET_4
   const MODEL_ARGS = {
     max_tokens: 2000,
     anthropic_version: 'bedrock-2023-05-31',