What is a Token? Why Do LLMs Charge You Per Token?
Posted on Wed 26 August 2026 in Tokens • Tagged with GenAI, LLM, tokens, tokenization, pricing, beginner
Why This Matters
If you've used the OpenAI or Claude API even once, you've seen the word "tokens" everywhere — in the pricing page, in the error messages ("context length exceeded"), in the response object. For a beginner, this is confusing. Why not just charge per word? Or per API call …
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