What is a token?

A token is a chunk of text, roughly three quarters of a word, and it is the unit everything gets counted in.

Navid Moazzezby Navid MoazzezUpdated Sept. 12, 20261 min read
~/ai-glossary
$ glossary
4 of 14 in #the-basics

Your input is counted in tokens, the response is counted in tokens, and both are billed that way.

The practical version: anything loaded before you type is paid for on every single session. That is the whole argument for keeping the setup light.

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