Search
Glossary8
Open the full glossary- TokenThe smallest unit of text a model handles. Not a character, and not a word.
- TokenizationThe rule set that chops text into tokens — and every model family chops differently.
- Tokens per second (generation throughput)How many tokens a model emits per second. During decode it is set mainly by memory bandwidth, not compute; the vendor's figure and your measured figure often differ by a wide margin.
- Token Cost / Inference CostToken cost / inference cost is input usage × input price + output usage × output price.
- API keyA secret string that tells a remote service "this request is yours, and the bill is yours".
- Rate limitThe cap on how many requests or tokens a service lets you send in a given window; go over it and you are throttled with a 429.
- LLM (Large Language Model)A neural network trained to predict the next token. It can only output text.
- Context windowThe total tokens a model can see at once — and input and output share that budget.
Found 9 articles
After You Press Enter: From 0.03 s to 0.85 s, What Your Question Goes Through
One real API call dissects the full chain of a question: 35 ms to establish the connection, microseconds to tokenize, 474 ms for the model to read your whole question, 380 ms generating it token by token — 854 ms in total. Includes the complete reproducible measurement method, and one counterintuitive conclusion: 96% of the time is not in the network but inside the model.
How to Cost AI: Subscriptions, Tokens, and Hidden Labor
AI adoption budgets are often severely underestimated because most people count only the subscription fees. This article teaches you to compute all three cost layers item by item — per-user monthly subscriptions, usage-billed API tokens, and the hidden labor of review and operations — and provides an estimation-sheet template you can fill in directly.
How AI Pricing Works: Why One Month Could Cost Ten Times More
What a token is, why long conversations get more expensive, what free tiers usually limit, how to choose between subscriptions and pay-as-you-go, and five concrete ways to keep your first month's cost near zero. No specific prices listed — this site only writes dollar amounts after manual verification.
Your First LLM API Call: Tokens, Billing, and Common Errors
Send your first LLM request with Python's openai SDK: understand the division of labor among system, user, and assistant message roles; the trade-offs of temperature, max_tokens, and streaming; token billing concepts and usage estimation; and finally, a troubleshooting guide for the errors every beginner will meet.
WeChat Open Source WeMM-Embedding Deep Dive: The Multimodal Embedding Model Topping MMEB-v2, Can It Run on Your Mac?
Breaking down WeMM-Embedding from the arXiv 2608.24053 technical report and source code: Qwen3.5 native multimodal backbone, <embedding> token pooling, two-stage training (Semantic-ID resampling + bidirectional KL distillation + model merging), full MMEB-v2/v3 leaderboard results, and local Mac Studio MPS benchmarks (47ms text / 321ms image / 6
Token-Efficiency Bias in LLM Agents: SOP Non-Compliance
When LLM agents systematically violate procedural rules despite explicit contrary instructions, and why only architectural enforcement can fix it.
Infrastructure-izing Context Compression: How Headroom Turns Token Cost from a Tactical Problem into System Architecture
Headroom 25.8K⭐ · A new species of Agent infrastructure, not a cost-saving tool but an infrastructure layer that makes long-running AI Agents economically viable. A 6-layer compression pipeline + the reversible CCR design + a 16x academic breakthrough validating that the route is correct.
Headroom: An LLM Context Compression Engine, Saving 60-95% of Tokens
GitHub Trending #2 · 38K ⭐ · Compresses everything an AI Agent reads (tool output/logs/documents/RAG), keeping the answer unchanged while reducing tokens by 60-95%. Supports four deployment modes: Library/Proxy/MCP/Agent Wrap
May 2026 LLM API Pricing Landscape: Complete Comparison of DeepSeek, Qwen, GLM, Kimi, MiniMax, and Doubao
Cross-verified through multiple search engines including Exa, Tavily, and Brave, this compiles per-million-token pricing for DeepSeek V4, Qwen3.6-plus, GLM-5, Kimi K2.5, MiniMax M2.7, Volcano Engine Doubao Seed 2.0, and Claude/GPT, with a Sub2API cost setup guide.