Model prices matter, but the largest waste often starts before the first token is billed. Undefined jobs make agents read too much, retain stale context, retry without a new strategy and call expensive models for routine work.
The useful metric is not cost per token. It is cost per accepted task.
Price the completed job, not the individual token
Token prices are useful for procurement. They are a poor measure of whether an agent is economical.
Suppose one model costs half as much per million tokens but needs three attempts to produce an acceptable result. Another model costs more per token but completes the job once, with the right evidence and format. The cheaper model may create the more expensive workflow.
