What are output tokens?

Output tokens are what the model writes back, and they are the expensive half.

Navid Moazzezby Navid MoazzezUpdated Sept. 12, 20261 min read
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11 of 14 in #the-basics

They cost several times what input costs, because generating text takes far more work than reading it.

This is the one to watch. Asking for a summary instead of a rewrite, or a diff instead of the whole file, is the difference between hitting your limit at lunchtime and not hitting it at all.