← All parts of this equation

Equation 1 · Part 9 · The Unit Economics of a Token

Symbol y

c=pinn+pcww+pcrr+pout(y+z)c = p_{\mathrm{in}} n + p_{\mathrm{cw}} w + p_{\mathrm{cr}} r + p_{\mathrm{out}} \left( y + z \right)
yy

What this part means

the five counts in that order and each p is the corresponding published rate.

Its job in the formula

y is one of the signed contributions combined to compute the quantity on the left.

Where the article explains it

where n , w , r , y and z are the five counts in that order and each p is the corresponding published rate.

The passage around this formula

Instrument each request to record five quantities: new input tokens, cache-write tokens, cache-read tokens, visible output tokens, and reasoning tokens. The cost of a single request is then c=pinn+pcww+pcrr+pout(y+z)c = p_{\mathrm{in}} n + p_{\mathrm{cw}} w + p_{\mathrm{cr}} r + p_{\mathrm{out}} \left( y + z \right). where n , w , r , y and z are the five counts in that order and each p is the corresponding published rate. The important feature is the last term: visible output and reasoning share one price, and the reasoning count is the only one of the five you cannot recover by inspecting what came back.

Read this part in the article →

Learn the underlying idea

A variable is a named place for a value. Its letter is a local label: x can mean position in one formula and a data point in another.

Open the illustrated variables: a letter stands for a value guide →

See this notation across published equations →

Sources cited in the article section

These citations provide research context; check each source for the exact claim it supports.