What is the Token Limit for ChatGPT 3.5 and ChatGPT 4?

We're big fans of ChatGPT. Our team works remotely and it’s made it so much easier to structure and share information.

However, we’re not such a fan of its token limits, which prevent ChatGPT from remembering anything beyond a certain word count.

In this article, we’ll explain how ChatGPT’s token limit works and help you work around the limits to finish your work faster and more efficiently.  

What is a ChatGPT Token?

A ChatGPT token is a sequence of characters that include a single word, parts of words, punctuation marks, spaces, or non-English characters. One ChatGPT token is usually equivalent to four characters of an English text or about three-fourths of a word. 

You can access OpenAI’s Tokenizer to visualize how its AI language model tokenizes a text and shows its total token count.

Below is a sample text I entered on Tokenizer:

What is the ChatGPT-3.5 Token Limit?

ChatGPT-3.5's token limit is 4,096 tokens, including tokens used for the prompt and ChatGPT's response. The updated GPT-3.5 Turbo language model has 16,385 tokens and a response output with a maximum of 4,096 tokens. You can access ChatGPT-3.5 with a free OpenAI account.

What is the ChatGPT-4 Token Limit?

The token limit for ChatGPT-4 is 8,192 tokens. You can access ChatGPT-4 with a ChatGPT Plus subscription, which costs $20 per user per month. The subscription includes uninterrupted access to ChatGPT-4, real-time web search capabilities, DALL-E 3's image generation feature, ChatGPT plugins, and a GPT builder for creating chatbots.

How do ChatGPT Token Limits Work?

A ChatGPT token limit restricts the number of tokens it can handle as part of the same prompt. Suppose you type in a prompt that contains 50 tokens and receive a response with 150 tokens. In that case, the chat will consume a total of 200 tokens. 

Tokens are limited by the ChatGPT model you use. When you’re using ChatGPT’s web chat interface, that’s not such an issue.

But when you’re integrating ChatGPT’s AI into your own application with the GPT-4 and GPT-3.5 turbo models, the token limit can be pretty restrictive.

Although ChatGPT can retain information until it exceeds its token limit for context length, lengthy prompts or extensive conversation history can result in missing details or shorter responses.

To illustrate, in the prompt below, I asked ChatGPT to summarize the main points of three essays I wrote. The total token count for the prompt and essays reached 3,747, with over 2,600 words and 17,258 characters.

Below is part of the summary ChatGPT generated for me, with only 349 tokens used.  That’s over 260 words and 1,974 characters.

What are the Differences between ChatGPT-3.5 and ChatGPT-4?

OpenAI uses GPT-3.5 and GPT-4 AI language models. While GPT-4 has more new features, GPT-3.5 is a helpful tool for everyday tasks. Here are some of the main differences between the two GPT models:

Size and date of training sources

GPT-3.5, with 175 billion parameters, was trained with information up to June 2021, while GPT-4, boasting 1 trillion parameters, was learned from data up to September 2021. The most recent GPT-4 version, GPT-4 Turbo, can process 128,000 tokens and was trained using large volumes of data until April 2023. 

Context window

The number of tokens ChatGPT can ‘remember’, known as the context window, is over 4,000 tokens for GPT-3.5. GPT-4's context window is even more impressive with an average of 8,000 tokens, which interestingly allows it to understand nuances in language such as humor and sarcasm.

Programming power

GPT-4 is better at generating code snippets and debugging existing code more effectively than GPT-3.5. That’s because it’s better informed by a larger, more up-to-date data source, and has a larger context window for processing code. 

Multimodal capabilities

GPT-3.5 focuses on text, but GPT-4 goes further by handling images, voice, and programming languages. GPT-4 can also analyze photos, understand context, and offer practical suggestions. For example, it can generate recipe ideas from a picture of your fridge or code websites from a sketch.

How to Get Around Token Limits

Now that we understand ChatGPT tokens, let's explore how to navigate its token limits.

• Draft clear and concise prompts: Write specific prompts to maximize your ChatGPT token allowance, especially if you want a more detailed response. 
• Specify a length limit to ChatGPT's response: To efficiently use your ChatGPT tokens, set a response limit to your prompt so that ChatGPT can avoid generating excessively long responses. For example: "What are the top five famous tourist spots in Bali, Indonesia? Be concise and use bullet points."
• Summarize complex questions: Sometimes, you may need to provide specific details or elaborate on a query, which can use up more of your tokens. For instance, if you need to summarize a long meeting transcript, consider copying only the essential parts of the discussion. You can use this prompt: "Summarize the main decisions and action items in this conversation." 

The Token-Friendly Alternative for Transcriptions and Meeting Summaries

If you use ChatGPT to take meeting notes and create summaries, Tactiq might be a more practical choice. 

The AI transcription tool offers a team plan with unlimited AI credits at only $16.70 per user per month, which is significantly cheaper than the ChatGPT Plus subscription. You also get templated prompts, and the option to ask questions to your bank of transcripts.

Here are simple ways to enhance your meeting experience with Tactiq:

Meeting Summaries and Transcripts

With Tactiq, you can easily capture significant points from your meetings. It processes conversations and highlights takeaways, providing insightful transcripts and summaries.

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AI Meeting Kits

Tactiq's AI Meeting Kits allow you to customize prompts and meeting notes for each discussion. This feature is valuable when drafting meeting minutes or revisiting decisions made during a meeting.

Action Items

During discussions, Tactiq actively identifies action items and recognizes tasks and follow-ups, making post-meeting tasks more productive and manageable.

Ask Questions of Your Transcript

You can ask questions and interact with your meeting transcript using Tactiq's AI. Easily find the information you need within the transcript, making it a smoother and more efficient way to navigate your discussions.

How to Sign Up To Tactiq?

You can easily install Tactiq for free from the Chrome Web Store. Once you’ve signed up, Tactiq will instantly pop up on Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, or Zoom meetings to take notes and transcribe your conversations.

Conclusion

While ChatGPT is an ideal AI tool for processing and generating natural language responses, Tactiq is the platform that’s most likely to make your meetings more productive. 

Tactiq's AI-driven meeting transcriptions and summaries will take your meetings to the next level.