AI Token Calculator
Paste any text to see roughly how many tokens it is — and what that text costs as input or output on every major AI model. Counts update as you type; nothing leaves your browser.
Cost of this text, model by model
| Model | As input | As output | ×1,000 requests (input) |
|---|
Prices are standard-tier list prices as of July 2026 — see the AI price tracker for current rates and recent changes.
How token counting works (and why this is an estimate)
AI models don't read words — they read tokens, chunks of roughly 3–4 characters of English. "Hamburger" is 2–3 tokens; "the" is 1. Each model family uses its own tokenizer, so exact counts differ slightly between GPT, Claude, and Gemini.
This tool uses the industry rule of thumb (≈4 characters or ≈0.75 words per token), which lands within about ±10% of real tokenizer output for normal English prose. For billing-critical exactness, use the provider's official tokenizer; for estimating costs and fitting text into context windows, this is what practitioners actually use.
Token rules of thumb worth memorizing
| Content | Approximate tokens |
|---|---|
| One English word | ~1.3 tokens |
| One sentence | ~25–30 tokens |
| One page of text (500 words) | ~660 tokens |
| A 10-page document | ~6,600 tokens |
| A 300-page book | ~200,000 tokens |
| Code | runs 20–40% more tokens per "word" than prose |
| Non-English (Korean, Japanese…) | often 1.5–3× more tokens per character |
Frequently asked questions
Why do tokens matter?
Two reasons: AI APIs bill per token, and every model has a context window (a maximum number of tokens per request). Knowing your token count tells you both what a call costs and whether your document fits.
Do GPT, Claude, and Gemini count tokens the same way?
No — each uses its own tokenizer, and the same text can differ by roughly 10–30% between them. The estimate here is a good planning midpoint.
Is my text uploaded to count it?
No. Counting happens entirely in your browser with simple arithmetic — nothing is sent to any server.
How do I reduce my token usage?
Trim conversation history, summarize long documents before sending, cache repeated system prompts (billed at ~10%), and route simple tasks to cheaper models — our chatbot cost simulator shows the impact at scale.