1 · Pick (or type) a prompt
The AI chops your text into tokens — little chunks, often a word-piece or one Chinese character. More text = more tokens = more cost.
Your prompt, split into tokens
0 input tokens
English splits on spaces & chunks long words; Chinese counts ~1 token per character.
2 · How long should the AI reply?
Short · 30 tokens
400 tokens · Long
3 · Cost per model tier
Same play-money units. Notice: in every tier, output costs more than input.
4 · Now imagine a whole classroom
1 kid200 kids
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