AI by Hand ✍️

AI by Hand ✍️

Prompt and Completion

What you send, what it writes

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

Are all tokens the same? No. There are two kinds: input tokens (what you send) and output tokens (what the model generates, one at a time). Both are counted the same way, but output tokens cost more. Every agent call produces both: the prompt is input, the reply is output.

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