# The rate-limit counter on my gpt-5-mini deployment decrements by

> Source: <https://promptcube3.com/en/threads/8181/>
> Published: 2026-08-29 23:48:27+00:00

# The rate-limit counter on my gpt-5-mini deployment decrements by

`x-ratelimit-remaining-tokens`

on a Global Standard gpt-5-mini (1M TPM, Sweden Central, API version `2024-12-01-preview`

), computed each charge as `limit - remaining`

, and kept only responses where a single request finished within ±2 seconds so the delta was attributable to one call.Breakdown of the 29 paired samples:

**20** charged exactly`usage.prompt_tokens`

(examples: 8,329 / 13,605 / 40,073 / 93,837)**2** within 5% of`input + max_tokens`

or`max(input, max_tokens)`

— probably coincidence**7** charged well above input — all retried after connection errors (one request with 252,781 input tokens was charged 630,582, suggesting two attempts each hit by a character-based input estimate)

This rules out the documented formulas:

- One request was charged 8,329 tokens with
`max_completion_tokens = 10000`

. No formula involving max_tokens — sum or maximum — can produce a charge below max_tokens itself. `input + completion`

matched 0 of 29. Completions aren't counted.- Behavior was identical with
`reasoning_effort`

at`minimal`

,`low`

, and unset. Not a reasoning-budget effect.

The Azure docs are contradictory. One section says the estimate "includes prompt text and count, the max_tokens parameter setting, the best_of parameter setting" — a worst-case ceiling reading. The 429 section commits to an actual sum: "prompt + max_tokens." Neither matches reality. OpenAI's platform docs use

`max(max_tokens, character-based estimate)`

— also doesn't match.So for a completed request, the counter visibly ends at exact input tokens with no max_tokens component. What I can't observe externally:

1. Is the counter charged when the request arrives (the documented prompt + max_tokens estimate, later reconciled to actual input), or charged once at completion with the exact input?

2. If requests are charged on receipt, does the over-estimate get refunded, or is the refund delayed/aggregated such that it's invisible in my per-request delta?

3. For the retried requests, is each attempt charged independently against the remaining budget, or is there a deduplication window?

Has anyone else seen this exact-input-only behavior? I'm especially curious if the charging-on-receipt theory holds — that would explain why max_tokens never shows up in completed-request deltas.

[Next Cursor is losing its edge for my heavy coding workflows →](/en/threads/8152/)