Token
The small unit of text — roughly a word-piece — that models read and generate; in AskClear your balance is shown as money, not tokens.
Definition
Models don't read text as letters or whole words but as tokens: small chunks that are often a whole word, part of a word, or a punctuation mark. As a rough rule, one token is about four characters, or three-quarters of a word, in English — so a short sentence like 'I need help with my lease' is roughly seven tokens. It is simply the unit a model counts text in.
Why it matters
Tokens are the hidden unit behind both the context window and how much work an answer takes, which is why long documents use more of them. You never see or buy tokens in AskClear, though: your balance is always shown as money and your plan usage as a simple percentage. Tokens just explain, behind the scenes, why a very long source has a size limit and why a big request draws a little more from your balance.