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Claude Code token usage measured: cached tokens far cheaper than new

By PulseAugur Editorial · [1 sources] ·

A user has developed a method to measure token usage within Anthropic's Claude Code, revealing that cached tokens are significantly less costly than new tokens. The analysis indicates that 1% of the 5-hour limit equates to approximately 166,000 new tokens or 11 million cached tokens, with cached tokens being about 67 times cheaper. This suggests that optimizing for fewer subagents and longer session continuity is more impactful for cost management than minor adjustments to starting context size. AI

IMPACT Provides insights for optimizing costs when using Claude Code, highlighting the cost difference between new and cached tokens.

RANK_REASON User-developed tool for analyzing a specific product's usage.

Read on dev.to — Claude Code tag →

AI-generated summary · Google Gemini · from 1 sources. How we write summaries →

Claude Code token usage measured: cached tokens far cheaper than new

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Signal score
24 / 100
Composite score across the factors below. Higher = stronger signal that this story matters right now.
Newsworthiness bucket
Tool
User-developed tool for analyzing a specific product's usage.
Source corroboration
Single-source cluster
Only one publisher covered this so far. Single-source stories can still rank when the publisher is high-authority, but they lack cross-source corroboration.
Topics
product, infra
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High
Clearly on-topic for AI-industry coverage.
Story freshness
Breaking (< 6h)
Fresh story with cross-source coverage still developing. Ranking may shift as more sources report.

Full methodology in our editorial standards.

COVERAGE [1]

  1. dev.to — Claude Code tag TIER_1 English(EN) · Sam Stull ·

    How many tokens is 1% of your Claude Code limit?

    <p><em>Originally published at <a href="https://limitcast.dev/blog/tokens-per-percent/" rel="noopener noreferrer">limitcast.dev</a>.</em></p> <p>Anthropic shows how much of your 5-hour and weekly limit you've used, as a percentage. It doesn't say how many tokens that percentage i…

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