Glossary
What is token?
The unit an AI model counts text in, usually a few characters long.
Models do not read characters or words. They read tokens, which are common character sequences learned during training. In English, one token averages about four characters.
Token counts decide both cost and how much fits in the context window. Navigation menus, cookie banners and repeated boilerplate burn tokens without adding meaning.
Stripping a page down to its readable body before sending it is the cheapest quality improvement available.
In practice
A typical documentation page is 2,000 to 6,000 tokens once the navigation and footer are removed.
Common questions
- What does token mean in one sentence?
- The unit an AI model counts text in, usually a few characters long.
- Why does token matter when you use Claude or ChatGPT?
- Stripping a page down to its readable body before sending it is the cheapest quality improvement available.
- Can you give an example of token?
- A typical documentation page is 2,000 to 6,000 tokens once the navigation and footer are removed.
Related terms
- Context windowThe amount of text an AI assistant can hold in mind during a single conversation.
- Readable content extractionPulling the main article text out of a page and discarding the furniture.
- TruncationCutting supplied text so it fits the model's limits.
- Glossary indexEvery AI context term, defined in plain language.
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