AI companies charge by the word, more or less. Let's see what real writing actually costs.
Technically they charge by the token, a chunk of a word, about three quarters of one. 100 words is roughly 133 tokens. That's the only jargon you need today.
Now pick an AI
Four of the 22 companies TokenScale verifies nightly.
These are raw API prices: the wholesale counter where app developers buy AI by the token. It's not your ChatGPT subscription; that's a flat monthly fee built on top of prices like these.
Your price
$0.00
That is the entire bill. Not per month: total, once.
Your price
$0.00
That is the entire bill. Not per month: total, once.
The wholesale API price for this one job: what a developer pays behind the scenes to run it once.
This slider only resizes the thing you picked. It never switches you onto something else.
Reading (input) is cheap; writing back (output) costs several times more per token. That's the most misunderstood thing about AI pricing.
Every company sells three sizes: a small fast model, a balanced middle one, and a flagship. Same job, very different bill. Tap the tabs above.
Same job, other companies
Prices for the identical task vary 10 to 50 times between companies, and they change constantly. TokenScale verifies all 22 every night; these four are just the famous ones.
Scale it up
100people
×
5a day each
One job's price × people × how often: the number a business actually cares about. Watch it change when you switch tiers above.