How does the token estimator calculate costs?

It counts tokens in your input text using a tokenization approximation, then multiplies by the per-token pricing for each selected AI model. Costs are shown for both input and output tokens separately.

What are reasoning tokens and why do they increase cost?

Reasoning tokens are hidden "thinking" tokens that models like OpenAI o1 and o3 generate internally before producing a response. They are billed like output tokens but are not visible in the response — making costs higher than expected. This tool estimates them based on typical reasoning overhead.

Which AI models are included in the cost comparison?

The estimator covers 20+ models including GPT-4o, GPT-4 Turbo, o1, o3-mini, Claude 3.5 Sonnet, Claude 3 Opus, Gemini 1.5 Pro, Gemini Flash, DeepSeek, Llama, and Mistral variants.

How accurate are the token count estimates?

Estimates are based on a widely-used approximation of ~4 characters per token for English text. For exact counts, use the official tokenizer for your target model. This tool is designed for budgeting and comparison, not byte-level precision.

Hidden Token & Cost Estimator - AI Pricing Calculator

Your Prompt or Text

0 characters · 0 tokens estimated

Select Models to Compare

Anthropic

Claude Opus 4.8 Claude Sonnet 4.6 Claude Haiku 4.5 Claude Sonnet 4.5 Claude Opus 4.5 Claude 3.5 Haiku (legacy)

🇨🇳 China

DeepSeek V4 Pro DeepSeek V4 Flash DeepSeek R1 ⚡ Qwen3 Max (Alibaba) Kimi K2.6 ⚡ (Moonshot) GLM-5.1 (Z.ai) MiniMax M2.7 Doubao Pro (ByteDance) ERNIE 4.5 (Baidu)

Others

Llama 3.3 70B Mistral Large Mistral Small

⚡ = Reasoning model (uses hidden thinking tokens that increase cost)

📊 Token Breakdown

Metric	Count
Input Tokens	-
Output Tokens (Est.)	-
Reasoning Tokens (Est.)	-

💵 Cost Comparison

🏆 Cheapest: -

💸 Most Expensive: -

📈 Difference: -

💡 Tips

Reasoning Tokens: o3, o4-mini, DeepSeek R1 and Kimi K2.6 use hidden "thinking" tokens that significantly increase cost
Output Estimation: Output is estimated at ~45% of input — adjust based on your use case
Pricing: Per 1M tokens (USD). Updated June 2026. Actual costs may vary by provider.
Token estimation: 1 token ≈ 4 characters for English text
China models: DeepSeek, Qwen, Doubao, Kimi, GLM, ERNIE and Hunyuan are typically 5-20× cheaper than US models for similar tasks

💰 AI Token & Cost Estimator (v2.0)

Estimate Tokens & Costs

📊 Token Breakdown

💵 Cost Comparison

💡 Tips