{
  "$type": "site.standard.document",
  "bskyPostRef": {
    "cid": "bafyreifnywj7xex34turyzm37z75xqhmte762rahaqhvvbk272nlxvceyy",
    "uri": "at://did:plc:lk3jfj3zq4k4wxnk474axylu/app.bsky.feed.post/3mfwi2kofom22"
  },
  "path": "/t/why-are-completion-tokens-so-high/1375358#post_1",
  "publishedAt": "2026-02-28T13:55:16.000Z",
  "site": "https://community.openai.com",
  "textContent": "I am using the gpt-5-nano model for a step in a chatbot to determine a user’s intention with their latest comment. There are about 15 categories that I am trying to identify for now, and I’ll reduce the number as I see which have most value.\n\nSo I have a reasonably large number of input tokens, which is fine, but what I don’t understand is the very high output tokens count that I am getting, usually 800-1000. For example, this response was 1057 tokens. It’s nearly as high when I ask for only the code without the reasoning. If I set max_completion_tokens any lower then it just ends up failing with a length error. Any idea what’s up?\n\n{“code”: “USER-COMPLIMENTS-ASSISTANT”, “reason”: “User said the assistant’s joke was very funny.”}\n\nThanks!\n\nSteve",
  "title": "Why are completion tokens so high?"
}