TUE, OCTOBER 20, 2026
Independent · In‑Depth · Practitioner‑Tested
ChatGPT Cost

True Token Cost Prompts

Listed price per million tokens is not what you pay. Tokenizers differ between model families, some providers rebill an entire request once input crosses a threshold, and cache pricing varies by more than 5x. These prompts turn a pricing page into the number that lands on your invoice. Paste the pricing page text in with each prompt.

⌨️ 5 prompts 🕐 Updated Oct 19, 2026
💡 How to use these prompts: Replace everything in [BRACKETS] with your specific details before sending. Click Copy to copy any prompt to your clipboard instantly.
1
Normalise for the tokenizer
Comparing prices for the same words, not the same tokens
Take this sample of my real text and estimate the token count under each model family I name below. Then recalculate the cost per million for each at the same amount of actual text rather than the same token count. Show both numbers.
2
Find the cliffs
Catching the rule that doubles a bill mid-request
Read this pricing page and list every threshold where the rate changes: context length tiers, volume tiers, effort levels, peak and off-peak windows. For each one, state whether crossing it rebills the whole request or only the excess. Quote the exact wording.
3
Cache maths
Pricing a repeated-context workload properly
Given my workload description below, estimate what proportion of my input tokens would be cache reads rather than fresh input. Recalculate the monthly cost at that cache ratio for each model, and show how the ranking changes between zero and eighty percent cache hits.
4
Cost per completed task
The only cost number that matters for agents
Given these two models with these completion rates on my kind of work, calculate the cost per SUCCESSFULLY COMPLETED task rather than per call. Assume a failed attempt costs full price and produces nothing. Show how many retries flip the ranking.
5
The invoice reconstruction
Turning a pricing page into a number you can budget against
Here is a description of a typical day of my usage. Build me a line-by-line estimate of the daily bill for each model, then multiply to a month. Flag any assumption you had to make rather than burying it.