--- title: "Tokens Are Not What You Think" url: https://daily.dev/posts/tokens-are-not-what-you-think-ovptltml4 source_url: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08tL8ekwwM0 type: video:youtube source: "ByteMonk" published: 2026-06-05T03:51:27.588Z updated: 2026-06-05T03:51:47.198Z tags: ["llm", "nlp", "prompt-engineering"] reading_time: 18 upvotes: 0 comments: 0 language: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Tokens Are Not What You Think **[ByteMonk](https://daily.dev/sources/bytemonk)** · 18 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary A deep dive into how LLM tokenization actually works and why it matters for cost and latency. Covers what tokens are (vs words/characters), how byte-pair encoding determines token boundaries, why UUIDs and code are token-expensive, and the full inference pipeline (prefill vs decode). Explains why output tokens cost 3-5x more than input tokens, and presents four cost-reduction levers: trimming prompts, prefix caching, model tiering, and shopping inference providers. Includes a live demo using OpenRouter to compare token counts and costs across Claude, GPT-4o, DeepSeek, and Llama. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Why Your LLM Bill Is 3× What You Expected](https://daily.dev/posts/why-your-llm-bill-is-3-what-you-expected-5dsz5eo2p) · DigitalOcean Community · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [How To Reduce LLM Token Costs by 70–90%](https://daily.dev/posts/how-to-reduce-llm-token-costs-by-70-90--lqaosovr2) · C\# Corner · 1 upvotes · 0 comments - [21 Days of LLMs, Day 2: Tokens, Context Windows, and Why Your API Bill Just Exploded](https://daily.dev/posts/21-days-of-llms-day-2-tokens-context-windows-and-why-your-api-bill-just-exploded-c4olbhc6v) · Medium · 2 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#llm](https://daily.dev/tags/llm), [#nlp](https://daily.dev/tags/nlp), [#prompt-engineering](https://daily.dev/tags/prompt-engineering) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/tokens-are-not-what-you-think-ovptltml4)