AI Token Cost Calculator – Estimate Monthly AI Expenses

Understanding AI Token Costs

AI services charge based on the number of tokens processed. A token is roughly four characters of English text, so both the prompt you send and the response you receive consume tokens. Estimating cost requires three pieces of information: how many requests you make each day, how many input tokens each request uses, how many output tokens each request generates, and the price per million tokens for input and output separately.

How the Calculation Works

The calculator multiplies your daily request volume by the total tokens per request (input + output) to find daily token usage. It then splits that usage into input and output portions, applies the respective per‑token prices, and converts the result to dollars. The formula in plain terms is:

Daily cost = (requests_per_day × input_tokens_per_request × input_price_per_token)

+ (requests_per_day × output_tokens_per_request × output_price_per_token)

Where input_price_per_token and output_price_per_token are the per‑token rates derived from the per‑million‑token prices you enter (price per 1 M tokens ÷ 1,000,000). Monthly cost is simply daily cost multiplied by 30 (or 31 if you prefer a calendar month), and cost per request is daily cost divided by requests per day.

Worked Example 1: Customer Support Chatbot

Suppose you run a chatbot that handles 500 customer inquiries each day. Each inquiry averages 150 input tokens (the user’s question) and generates 250 output tokens (the bot’s reply). Your provider charges $0.008 per 1 M input tokens and $0.012 per 1 M output tokens.

• Input price per token = $0.008 / 1,000,000 = $0.000008
• Output price per token = $0.012 / 1,000,000 = $0.000012

Daily input cost = 500 × 150 × $0.000008 = $0.60

Daily output cost = 500 × 250 × $