Cheap LLM API routes reported inflated input token counts for a fixed prompt
A daily check sent the same roughly 90-token prompt to 107 model routes across four hosts on 2026-10-12. Many routes reported input counts in the thousands, with some GPT routes near 4,469 tokens and two GLM routes at 14,111. The author suggests hosts may be prepending hidden system prompts that the customer is billed for on each request. No host is named, and the author notes other explanations are possible. Developers can test their own providers with a one-token request and compare the reported prompt_tokens against a baseline.
This is an AI-generated summary. ShortSingh links to the original source for the complete article.


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