### Answer Yes, lower token usage can contribute to faster response times. Here's what you should know: ## Benefits of Low Token Usage Latency Impact High token usage has been observed to contribute to slower response times. One community member noted that "fast" mode combined with high token usage affected their LLM minutes and performance. [(1) ]() Cost Considerations LLM usage is billed based on token count. Prompts up to 3,500 tokens follow the existing flat rate, but prompts exceeding 3,500 tokens scale proportionally in cost. [(2) ]() For example with GPT-4.1: - A prompt with 3,200 tokens is billed at the base rate - A prompt with 4,500 tokens is billed at:

4500 / 3500 * base rate

## Single Prompt Limitations at Scale As complexity and token count increase, single prompt agents may experience: [(3) ]() - **Behavioral Drift**: Agent deviates from instructions in edge cases - **Function Calling Issues**: Unreliable tool usage with multiple functions - **Maintenance Challenges**: Large prompts become difficult to debug and update - **Context Confusion**: Agent struggles to track conversation state Consider using a conversation flow agent or multi-prompt agent when your single prompt exceeds 1,000 words or uses more than 5 functions. ## Optimization Tips To reduce latency, you can also: [(4) ]() - Change to a faster LLM - Change to a faster TTS (text-to-speech) You can monitor the latency of individual calls in the "Call History" section to track performance. [(5) ]()

​ To learn more, see the sources I considered: [[1] Discord message from @helloamitkg on 2025-07-23](https://discord.com/channels/1186424376300679209/1186462578310910112/1397553703170609264) [[2] Platform Changelogs | Retell AI](https://www.retellai.com/changelog) [[3] Single/Multi Prompt Agent Overview](https://docs.retellai.com/build/single-multi-prompt/prompt-overview) [[4] Performance-related configurations and noticeable latency during live calls](https://community.retellai.com/t/performance-related-configurations-and-noticeable-latency-during-live-calls/747) [[5] Check actual latency](https://docs.retellai.com/reliability/check-actual-latency) ​

Feel free to tag @AI Evy with additional questions. I also appreciate feedback, it helps me improve.