AI by Hand ✍️

AI by Hand ✍️

Token Allowance

How many tokens fifty cents buys

Prof. Tom Yeh's avatar
Prof. Tom Yeh
May 28, 2026
∙ Paid

Library › Token Problems

  1. Tokenization

  2. Subword Tokens

  3. Non-Word Tokens

  4. Token Ratio

  5. Headroom

  6. Token Pricing

  7. Prompt and Completion

  8. The Billing Line

  9. Asymmetric Pricing

  10. Words to Cents

  11. Token Mix

  12. Usage Forecast

  13. Standing Instructions

  14. Fixed Overhead

  15. Budget Ceiling

  16. Token Allowance

  17. Two Speeds

  18. Output Bound

  19. Rate Cards

  20. Usage Audit

Given a budget, how many tokens can one call afford? The earlier pricing problems ran forward: tokens in, cost out. This one runs backward: cost in, tokens out. Divide the budget by the price per block, then scale up to tokens. Agents with per-call cost limits use this calculation to set a maximum context size before each turn.

Paid members: the worksheet and its printable PDF are below ↓

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