AI cost planning library
AI Token and API Cost Guides
Turn a file, prompt, or product workload into a practical AI API budget. Start with token estimation, choose the guide closest to your use case, then test the assumptions in the calculator.
Understand and estimate tokens
Use these guides when your starting point is text length, document size, or an expected answer length. Tokenizers differ by model and language, so treat conversions as planning ranges rather than exact billing totals.
Plan a specific AI workload
These examples identify the workload details that generic token totals can miss, including retrieved context, repeated workflow rounds, generated files, extraction quality, and answer length.
Build and reduce a monthly budget
Move from per-request estimates to monthly volume, then compare practical levers such as shorter outputs, less repeated context, better retrieval, fewer retries, and task routing.
A reliable planning sequence
Estimate input and output separately, multiply by workflow rounds and usage volume, add a safety buffer, and compare the result with real API usage after a representative test. Recheck current provider pricing before making a purchasing decision.