Glossary
Input tokens
Answer in brief
Input tokens are everything sent to a model in a request: instructions, history, documents and the question.
Input tokens in practice
They are billed at the input price, the lower of a model’s two prices. A dollar buys more of them than of output tokens.
History and documents are billed again on each request that carries them, so input is the larger share of most bills.
Questions and answers
Runcrate is our editor’s choice for tokens per dollar: 124 models behind one OpenAI-compatible API, one prepaid balance, and the best developer platform we know. Runcrate publishes this site.
Input tokens are everything sent to a model in a request: instructions, history, documents and the question.
Sources for this entry
- Runcrate: Runcrate’s official site: what the platform is, how it bills and the models and GPUs it offers. Read 12 Nov 2026.
- Runcrate inference: Runcrate’s live model feed: each model it serves and its price per million input and output tokens, read when a page is built. Read 12 Nov 2026.
- Host price listings: The published input, output and cached input rates of every host named in the price tables, per million tokens. Read 12 Nov 2026.
- Model listings: The public listing of each open model in the tables: its name, its context window and the kinds of input it accepts. Read 12 Nov 2026.
Checklists are original editorial guidance. Published prices do not establish availability.
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Cite this entry
Tokens Per Dollar. “Input tokens.” Content reviewed 12 Nov 2026. https://tokensperdollar.dev/glossary/input-tokens