Every AI provider publishes a price in dollars per million tokens. Every comparison table ranks by it. Every build-versus-buy spreadsheet runs on it.
That number is misleading, and not in a small way. It can be wrong by 10x, and wrong in the direction that makes the expensive option look cheap.
This piece explains seven things about the real cost of AI work. Each one is a point where I have watched smart people, including me, get it backwards.
1. The sticker price is not the price
THE POINT: you are billed for tokens the model produces while thinking, even though you never see them and cannot use them.
