{"slug": "i-audited-78-api-requests-on-my-own-gateway-one-of-them-used-1086-input-tokens-2", "title": "I audited 78 API requests on my own gateway. One of them used 1,086 input tokens and returned 2 tokens. Token waste is real.", "summary": "A developer audited 78 API requests on their own gateway for Chinese AI models and found that one request used 1,086 input tokens to return only 2 output tokens, highlighting significant token waste. The developer is building a Token Audit tool to catch duplicate submissions, expensive models used for trivial queries, and nighttime spikes that may indicate key leaks.", "body_md": "I built a small API gateway for Chinese AI models (DeepSeek, etc.) and decided to audit my own token usage. Nothing fancy — just 78 test requests.\n\nWhat I found:\n\n76 successful calls → 13,103 tokens total (avg ~172 per call)\n\n2 calls failed → invalid model name (no cost, but indicates misconfiguration)\n\nWorst case: 1,086 input tokens → 2 output tokens. Yes, someone pasted a massive document and got a 2-token reply. This is like using a Ferrari to deliver a pizza.\n\nIf this happens at enterprise scale, the waste is astronomical. Companies are throwing money at AI APIs without knowing where it's going.\n\nWhat I'm building:\n\nA Token Audit tool that catches:\n\n❌ Duplicate content submissions\n\n❌ Expensive models used for trivial queries\n\n❌ Nighttime spikes (potential key leaks)\n\nWould you use this for your team? Any feedback is appreciated.\n\nP.S. This is my own test data, not customer data. Just validating the problem.", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/i-audited-78-api-requests-on-my-own-gateway-one-of-them-used-1086-input-tokens-2", "canonical_source": "https://dev.to/neutrino-api/i-audited-78-api-requests-on-my-own-gateway-one-of-them-used-1086-input-tokens-and-returned-2-34a9", "published_at": "2026-07-27 06:33:44+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-07-27 07:02:09.477228+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["artificial-intelligence", "ai-tools", "ai-infrastructure"], "entities": ["DeepSeek"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/i-audited-78-api-requests-on-my-own-gateway-one-of-them-used-1086-input-tokens-2", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/i-audited-78-api-requests-on-my-own-gateway-one-of-them-used-1086-input-tokens-2.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/i-audited-78-api-requests-on-my-own-gateway-one-of-them-used-1086-input-tokens-2.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/i-audited-78-api-requests-on-my-own-gateway-one-of-them-used-1086-input-tokens-2.jsonld"}}