Input vs. Output Tokens in LLM: Why Pricing Differs

May 24, 2026
Why are output tokens 3x to 5x more expensive than input tokens in AI pricing? Discover the hardware limits and compute differences of LLM reasoning.
Token Pricing
Prefill
Decode
LLM Compute
Input vs. Output Tokens in LLM: Why Pricing Differs | TokenCalc.org