What is a token in Claude AI ?

Tokens are the numeric chunks LLMs like Claude process—roughly 4 chars in English, more in Portuguese due to BPE bias.

How big is Claude's context window?

1M tokens for Opus/Sonnet, but 'lost in the middle' makes effective size way smaller—attention drops hard past 100K.

Why do non-English prompts cost more?

Tokenization premium: Portuguese needs 30-90% more tokens than English, hiking input/output fees.

Claude Code's Hidden Tax: Why Tokens and Context Windows Cost You More Than You Think

Your prompts aren't just words—they're pricey LEGO bricks. And if you're not building in English, you're paying extra. Here's the real mechanics behind Claude Code.

theAIcatchup Apr 09, 2026 3 min read

LEGO bricks scattered on a desk representing LLM tokens and context window limits

⚡ Key Takeaways

Tokens via BPE create a 30-90% 'tax' for non-English, hiking Claude costs. 𝕏
1M-token contexts sound huge but suffer 'lost in the middle'—effective span much smaller. 𝕏
Optimize by front-loading key info; multilingual tokenizers could equalize by 2027. 𝕏

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theAIcatchup

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#BPE tokenization #Claude AI #Claude Code #Claude Code 101 #Claude tokens #LLM tokens #Portuguese LLM bias #byte pair encoding #context window #language model tokenization #language model tokens #tokenization bias

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Originally reported by dev.to

⚡ Key Takeaways

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