AI Token Cost Calculator
Compare AI API costs across GPT, Claude, Gemini, Grok, and DeepSeek. Estimate tokens and see real-time cost comparisons for your prompts.
Calculate Your Costs
Estimated tokens: 0
Estimated tokens: 0
Cost Comparison
Prices checked: October 2026
Monthly Cost Estimates
If you make 1,000 requests per month with these token counts:
How It Works
Token counting methodology: This calculator estimates tokens using a 4-character approximation (1 token ≈ 4 characters in English). This is reasonably accurate for English text but varies by model and language. Newer Claude models produce about 30% more tokens than older models. For exact counts, use vendor-specific tokenizers. Counts here are estimated tokens (~4 chars/token).
Cost calculation: Cost = (Input tokens ÷ 1,000,000 × Input price) + (Output tokens ÷ 1,000,000 × Output price). AI APIs charge separately for input (your prompt) and output (the response), with output typically costing 3-5× more than input.
Pricing data (October 2026): All prices are sourced from official vendor pricing pages and updated periodically. Prices are in USD per 1 million tokens. Actual costs may vary based on volume discounts, rate limits, and pricing changes. Always verify current pricing on vendor sites.
Model differences: Cheaper models (GPT-6 Luna, Claude Haiku 5.5, Gemini Flash Lite, DeepSeek Flash) are optimized for speed and cost but may have lower quality. Premium models (Claude Opus 5.5, GPT-6.1 Sol, Gemini 4 Argon) cost more but offer better reasoning and accuracy. Note that some models have token limits (Claude Haiku 5.5: 100K prompts) and time-based pricing changes (Gemini rates increase Dec 2026/Jan 2027).
Frequently Asked Questions
How are AI API costs calculated?
AI API costs are calculated per token, with separate pricing for input (prompt) and output (completion) tokens. Prices are typically quoted per 1 million tokens. For example, if GPT-4o costs $2.50 per 1M input tokens and you send 10,000 tokens, that costs $0.025.
What is a token in AI?
A token is a piece of text, roughly 4 characters in English. The word "example" is about 2 tokens. AI models process text as tokens. Token count affects both cost and context limits. Most models have maximum context windows (e.g., 128k tokens for GPT-4o).
Which AI model is cheapest?
As of October 2026, GPT-6 Luna ($0.10 per 1M input tokens), Claude Haiku 5.5 ($0.10 per 1M, prompts up to 100K), Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite ($0.30 per 1M), and DeepSeek Flash ($0.15-0.30 per 1M) are among the cheapest. Pricing changes frequently and varies by volume and region, so check vendor sites.
How accurate is this token counter?
This tool uses a 4-character approximation (1 token ≈ 4 characters) which is reasonably accurate for English text. Actual tokenization varies by model and language. For exact counts, use vendor-specific tokenizers. This gives a useful estimate for cost comparison.
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