Home AI Compass Basics
Token
The small piece of text a model reads and writes — and the unit most AI APIs are billed in.
Basics path · 2 of 7
What it is
Models don't read words; they read tokens — chunks of text such as a short word, part of a longer word or a punctuation mark. Input and output are both counted in tokens, which is why prices, limits and speed are usually quoted per token.
Example
The same paragraph can cost a different number of tokens in different languages — non-English text, including Polish, often needs more of them.
What can go wrong
Long documents and long conversations multiply token use — and cost. Some attacks deliberately make a system burn tokens ("denial of wallet").
How to secure it
Set limits per user and per task, watch usage, and leave out text the model doesn't need.
In Obsigen
Obsigen shows the usage of every task — model, tokens and time — in one panel. About Obsigen AI
Related
Related service: Applied AI