The Novel Index
One number, asked every night: what's the cheapest price to make an AI write a whole novel? The novel is The Hobbit — 95,356 words. Like the Big Mac Index, it turns abstract token pricing into a single figure you can feel.
The cheapest available price to generate the whole novel, tracked since the start of the year. The floor keeps grinding down as providers compete.
The same 95,356-word novel, generated on each provider's cheapest model. From half a cent to over sixty — a 100× spread for identical output.
Compare providers over time novel cost · last 30 days ▾
The cost to write the whole novel on each provider, tracked nightly — watch them race to the bottom and undercut each other. Tap a provider to add or remove its line.
The Novel Index is the output cost to generate ~95,356 words — the full text of The Hobbit (word count verified via Project Gutenberg). At roughly 0.75 words per token, that's 127,141 output tokens. The index multiplies that by each provider's output price, then takes the lowest across all 21.
The benchmark line pins to Google's Gemini Flash-Lite — a fixed, well-known reference point, the way the Big Mac Index uses one standard burger. It moves when Google moves.
Open it on TokenScale →
⚠ Point-in-time figures, not live quotes. Providers change rates (and run limited promos) often — always verify on the live tool before relying on a number. The Novel Index is the output cost to generate ~95,356 words; The Hobbit is used purely as a fixed, recognisable word count.