№. 001 — Apr 2026
The
Token
Tax
.
prices per 1M tokens, USD
A back-of-the-envelope cost ledger for the leading frontier & workhorse LLMs.
Total Tokens (Input + Output)
1,000,000
≈ 750,000 words · roughly a long novel
10K
100K
1M
10M
100M
1B
Input vs. Output Mix
95
% in ·
5
% out
Almost pure input — heavy retrieval, short replies (e.g. classification)
← all output
all input →
The Reckoning
15 models · sorted cheapest first
Filter:
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Frontier only
Mid-tier
Budget