How LLM Tokens Work (And Why They Explain Your AI Bill) (opens in new tab)

Your LLM never reads your words — it reads tokens. And almost every surprise on your AI bill traces back to that one fact. Here's the breakdown 👇 Here's the thing almost nobody internalizes about large language models: Claude never reads your words. It reads tokens — numbers. Your prompt is chopped into pieces, each piece is mapped to an integer, and the model only ever sees those integers. Every limit you hit, every bill you pay, and half the weird behavior you've seen traces back to this on...