---
type: CKG Bundle
title: Token Cost Crisis
description: Why enterprise AI spend compounds project-over-project, and how deterministic retrieval replaces expensive reasoning.
tags: [token-economics, cost, finops, rag, ckg]
timestamp: 2026-06-18T00:00:00Z
ckg:
  id: token-cost-crisis
  version: 1.0.0
  source: "Graphify.md positioning + ckg-benchmark v0.6.2"
---
# Token Cost Crisis — CKG

```csv
ConceptID,ConceptLabel,Dependencies,TaxonomyID
1,Context window,,FOUND
2,Input tokens,1,FOUND
3,Re-shipped context,2,ECON
4,RAG retrieval,,RAG
5,Chunk bloat,4,RAG
6,Context budget (25/30/30/15),3,ECON
7,Cost per query,2,ECON
8,Compounding spend,7,ECON
9,"Bigger window" (false fix),1,ECON
10,Compression,,CKG
11,Compressed Knowledge Graph,10,CKG
12,Deterministic retrieval,11,CKG
13,Cost per correct answer,7|11,ECON
14,Predictable owned spend,11,CKG
```

## Edges
1→2 · 2→3 · 4→5 · 5→6 · 3→6 · 2→7 · 7→8 · 1→9 · 10→11 · 11→12 · 7→13 · 11→13 · 11→14

> The disease isn't window size — it's re-shipping context you already paid for, every call. Compress once, retrieve deterministically: **~11× fewer tokens, ~10× lower cost** (ckg-benchmark v0.6.2). *Built by Graphify.md — own the knowledge layer, rent the model.*