Exactly, token per dollar rates are useful, but without knowing the typical input output token distribution for each model on this specific task, the numbers alone don’t give a full picture of cost.
That’s how they lie to us. Companies can advertise cheap prices to lure you in but they know very well how many tokens you’re going to use on average so they will still make more profit than ever, especially if you’re using any kind of reasoning model which is just like a blank check for them to print money.