Token

In one sentenceThe small chunks of text an AI reads and writes. Roughly 4 characters, or about three quarters of a word, in English.

What it means

AI models do not read words the way we do. They break text into tokens: whole short words, pieces of longer words, punctuation and spaces. "LinkedIn" might be two tokens; "evyAI" might be three.

Tokens matter for two reasons: they set how much the model can handle at once (the Context Window), and they are how AI companies charge for API usage.

How to use it

• Rule of thumb: 1,000 tokens is about 750 English words.
• If a tool says your text is too long, it is counting tokens. Trim the input or split it into parts.
• Emoji and non-English text often use more tokens per character.

Related terms

Context Window LLM Token Pricing