Question 1

What are tokens in AI models?

Accepted Answer

Tokens are the basic units AI models use to process text. A token can be a word, part of a word, or a single character. For English text, 1 token is roughly 4 characters or about 0.75 words. Every API call is priced based on the number of tokens processed — both the tokens you send (input) and the tokens the model generates (output).

Question 2

How is the cost calculated?

Accepted Answer

We multiply your input tokens by the model's input price per token, plus the expected output tokens by the output price per token. That gives you the cost per request. Multiply by your daily request volume and by 30 to get your monthly estimate. All prices are per 1 million tokens, as listed on each provider's official pricing page.

Question 3

How much does GPT-4o cost?

Accepted Answer

GPT-4o costs $2.50 per million input tokens and $10.00 per million output tokens. A typical request with 500 input tokens and 500 output tokens costs about $0.00625 — or $6.25 per 1,000 requests. For comparison, GPT-4o Mini costs 16x less for input tokens.

Question 4

What is the cheapest AI model?

Accepted Answer

As of March 2026, the cheapest models for most tasks are Gemini 2.0 Flash ($0.10/1M input), GPT-4.1 Nano ($0.10/1M input), and GPT-4o Mini ($0.15/1M input). The best choice depends on your quality requirements — cheaper models work great for classification, extraction, and simple tasks, while complex reasoning or code generation may need a more capable (and expensive) model.

Question 5

How much does it cost to run an AI chatbot?

Accepted Answer

It depends heavily on the model and volume. A chatbot handling 1,000 conversations per day with GPT-4o Mini costs roughly $15-30/month. The same volume on Claude Opus 4 would cost $1,500+/month. Model selection is the single biggest cost lever — use this calculator to find the sweet spot between quality and budget.

Question 6

Why do input and output tokens have different prices?

Accepted Answer

Output tokens are more expensive because the model has to generate them one at a time, running inference at each step. Input tokens are processed in parallel, which is computationally cheaper. That's why output tokens typically cost 2-5x more than input tokens across most providers.

Question 7

How accurate is the token count?

Accepted Answer

For OpenAI models, we use tiktoken (cl100k_base) — the exact same tokenizer OpenAI uses in production. For other providers, we estimate based on a ratio of approximately 4 characters per token, which is accurate for English text. Actual counts may vary slightly by provider and language.

Question 8

Are these prices up to date?

Accepted Answer

We update prices regularly based on official provider pricing pages. AI model pricing changes frequently — providers often reduce prices as they optimize infrastructure. Check the provider's official page for real-time rates. Last update: March 2026.

Question 9

Which model should I choose?

Accepted Answer

For simple tasks like classification, extraction, or reformatting — use the cheapest models (GPT-4o Mini, Gemini Flash). For complex reasoning, coding, or creative writing — GPT-4o, Claude Sonnet, or Gemini Pro deliver better quality at higher cost. For the most demanding tasks — Claude Opus or o3 provide the highest capability. Use this calculator to compare costs at your expected volume before committing.

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