AI tokens are how LLMs meter text for billing — not cryptocurrency. o10 optimizes token spend by routing to the cheapest compliant model per use case. Interactive calculator and venue price tables.
AI tokens here mean LLM prompt and completion units priced per million — not blockchain tokens.
"Cheaper tokens miss the point. Up to 90% of an AI system's operational life is inference — where value, reliability, and risk are decided."
Cost dashboards tell you what you spent. o10 sits in the request path and changes what you spend — shadow first, then enforce.
Short, self-contained answers with cited stats — read the sections below for full context.
See hub definition. AI tokens is central to LLM token metering and pricing — the layer where o10 enforces spend instead of observing it after the fact.
Median enterprise teams overpay 47% versus cheapest compliant token routes when traffic stays on defaults (o10, June 2026).
Enterprises run inference across fragmented venues without a single ledger. AI tokens becomes a control problem when prompts, models, and retries change faster than finance can react.
Dashboards tell you what you spent last month. o10 sits in the request path and changes what you spend on the next call — with shadow mode proof before enforce.
o10 benchmarks show material spread — up to 47% overpay depending on workload — between default routes and cheapest compliant supply at the same quality floor.
A measured eval bar per use case. The cheapest model that passes is the route o10 selects — not the most expensive default.
Shadow mode mirrors traffic, shows what would have routed, and builds a verified baseline. Enforce mode flips only after per-use-case proof.
Production AI teams face LLM token metering and pricing across multiple providers without unified policy.
Gateways simplify API access. Aggregators multiply model choice. Committed cloud capacity sits underutilized while per-token APIs absorb live traffic.
Finance receives invoices after spend accrues. Platform teams lack a single control point to hold envelopes when product changes land.
o10 is the inference spend control plane — above gateways, not replacing them.
For AI tokens, o10 routes every call to the cheapest compliant model, enforces data and residency policy, and records an immutable per-call ledger.
KYI scores the supply chain above routing so boards see value, risk, and recommendation — not token totals alone.
| Tier | Gateway | Committed |
|---|---|---|
| Mini-class | $2.40 | $1.85 |
| Sonnet-class | $9.40 | $7.20 |
| Frontier | $31.90 | $24.50 |
Four questions — each with a lever, not a slide.
Fully loaded cost per use case. Cost per business outcome. Which use cases fail unit economics. Forecast tied to a volume driver.
o10 answers each in the control plane and auto-rightsizes or caps use cases that breach the floor.
Segment by use case. See current model, venue, and blended $/1M.
Per workload — support, RAG, code, batch — not one global number.
Prove savings and equivalence against your baseline.
Flip enforce. KYI and ledger stay live for board and regulator.
o10 AI tokens hub content. Benchmarks from State of Inference Spend 2026. Framework by Shen Pandi.
AI tokens is central to LLM token metering and pricing in enterprise AI. o10 treats it as a control problem, not a reporting metric: spend and policy must be enforced on the next request, not explained on last month's invoice. The operational layer is inference — where models meet live traffic, tokens accrue, and governance either holds or fails. Median enterprise teams overpay 47% versus cheapest compliant token routes when traffic stays on defaults (o10, June 2026).
Route each use case to the cheapest model that clears your eval-defined quality floor — never the most expensive default. Start in shadow mode to prove savings per workload against your baseline, then flip enforce mode to hold budget envelopes in the path. Segment support, RAG, code, and batch independently; floors and compliant tiers differ. o10 benchmarks show material spread — up to 47% overpay depending on workload — between default routes and cheapest compliant supply.
Shadow mode mirrors live inference traffic through o10 without changing production routes. For every request, o10 evaluates candidate models against your per-use-case quality floors and records which route would have been cheapest and compliant — along with the cost delta — while the original provider still serves the response. Engineering sees proof without production risk; finance gets a verified savings figure tied to your traffic, not industry averages. Most teams run shadow for 7–14 days segmented by use case (support, RAG, code, batch) before flipping enforce mode. Use shadow to validate ai tokens routing economics before any production change.
Enforce mode places o10 in the request path. On every call, o10 selects the cheapest model and venue that clears your eval-defined quality floor, holds the budget envelope, and applies residency and retention policy before the request reaches the provider. Failed eval candidates are never routed. Each enforced call writes an immutable ledger entry: model, venue, policy, jurisdiction, and fully loaded cost. Enforce without shadow proof is possible but discouraged — shadow establishes trust with engineering and finance first. Enforce is how ai tokens policy becomes spend reality on every live call.
No. o10 does not replace your AI gateway or developer-facing APIs. It sits above gateways and clouds, adding spend enforcement, eval-gated routing, policy, and CFO-grade ledger — not proxy compatibility. Teams keep Vercel AI Gateway, OpenRouter, or LiteLLM for access; o10 changes which model and venue serve each request based on cost, eval floor, and governance rules. The split is intentional: gateways provide doors; control planes enforce economics. For ai tokens, keep your gateway; add o10 above it for enforcement and KYI governance.
Know Your Inference (KYI) is a governance framework by Shen Pandi that scores inference systems across five weighted pillars: Performance (25%), Economics (25%), Integration (20%), Strategy (20%), and Risk (10%). Each pillar scores 0–100; the composite rolls into a confidence level and board-signable recommendation. KYI runs continuously in the o10 control plane — not as a one-off audit — so every routed call and eval updates the score. A composite floor of 65 triggers enforcement levers: cap, rightsizing, or sunset per policy.
Per-use-case ledger entries, continuous eval scores, and unit economics — not blended token averages. o10 records model, venue, policy, jurisdiction, and fully loaded cost on every call. KYI rolls pillar scores into a composite recommendation boards can sign. ai tokens measurement stays live; it does not wait for month-end close.
o10 unifies routing policy and ledger across Vercel AI Gateway (per-token API), OpenRouter (multi-provider aggregator), Amazon Bedrock (per-token and committed capacity), and owned or open-weight infrastructure. A single control plane sits above all venues — you do not need separate dashboards per provider. o10 selects the cheapest compliant supply per call while honoring data residency, zero-retention, and model approval rules. Committed Bedrock drawdown and open-weight routing are first-class venues, not afterthoughts.
A quality floor is the minimum eval score a model must achieve for a specific use case before o10 routes production traffic to it. Floors are per workload — support, RAG, code, and batch clear at different bars — and measured by replaying representative traffic through eval suites, not assumed from vendor benchmarks. Once a cheaper candidate passes the floor, o10 can route to it in shadow (proof) or enforce (live). Floors without evals are hopes; evals without floors are expensive defaults.
Most stacks connect o10 in shadow mode within a day: point traffic through the control plane, segment by use case, and start the verified savings clock. Enforce mode follows after per-use-case eval equivalence is proven — typically one to two weeks for enterprises with multiple workloads. No six-week gateway migration is required; o10 sits above existing gateways and clouds. KYI scoring and the immutable ledger stay live from day one in shadow.
The 638× figure is the observed ratio between the most and least expensive compliant routing options for identical enterprise workloads at the same per-use-case quality floor across venues — not a guarantee for every team. o10 measured this across Vercel AI Gateway, OpenRouter, Amazon Bedrock committed capacity, and owned open-weight in June 2026. Actual savings depend on your venue mix, volumes, and eval floors; shadow mode proves your organization's number against your baseline.
Benchmarks and spread methodology are documented in the State of Inference Spend 2026 report at o10.io/research/state-of-inference-spend-2026, including venue price tables, workload savings models, and the 638× compliant spread calculation. The KYI framework whitepaper at o10.io/research/kyi-whitepaper provides the governance methodology cited across glossary and hub content. Both are primary sources designed for search snippets and AI answer engine citation.
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