About

aicostcalculator.co.uk is a free, independent tool that helps people estimate and compare the cost of running workloads across the major large language models — Claude, GPT, Gemini, Grok, and others.

Why this site exists

Software has spent the last two decades drifting toward predictable, flat-fee subscriptions. Generative AI is pulling pricing in the opposite direction. Most modern AI products are billed by tokens consumed — fractions of a cent per piece of input or output — and a single application can rack up wildly different bills depending on which model it calls, how long the prompts are, and how verbose the responses get.

That makes budgeting unusually difficult. A summary task that costs $0.0001 on one model can cost $0.05 on another — a 500× spread for the same job. For developers, founders, finance teams, and curious individuals, getting an intuition for these numbers before committing to a model can be the difference between a viable product and a runaway cloud bill.

This calculator was built to make those numbers obvious in a few seconds, without spreadsheets, signups, or sales calls.

What the calculator does

The site lets visitors plug in expected input tokens, output tokens, and request volumes, and instantly see what each major AI model would cost across that workload. It also includes:

• A live token counter for pasted prompt text
• A side-by-side comparison of every supported model at the same workload
• Plain-English explanations of how token pricing works, how to estimate monthly costs, and how to optimise spend without sacrificing quality
• An always-current pricing table sourced from each provider's published rates

Everything runs in the browser. Nothing is logged, stored, or sent to a server.

How prices stay current

AI pricing changes frequently — providers regularly cut rates on older models when newer ones launch, and new entrants tend to undercut existing pricing to gain share. The model list is reviewed and updated each time a major provider adjusts its rates or releases a new model. The calculator's data file is updated accordingly so visitors always see current numbers.

Even so, providers are the ultimate source of truth. Anyone making a commercial decision should verify against each provider's official pricing page before signing a contract.

Editorial principles

Who runs it

aicostcalculator.co.uk is operated as an independent project by a small team interested in the economics of generative AI. The team has no commercial relationship with the AI providers covered on the site. The project began as an internal tool for evaluating model cost-efficiency on real workloads, and was opened up to the public when it became clear that no good free alternative existed.

A note on accuracy

Token counts shown in the prompt analyser are estimates based on a common rule of thumb (~4 characters per token). Real-world tokenisation varies by provider and language. Costs are calculated from each provider's published per-million-token rates and do not account for fine-tuning, batch discounts, prompt caching, or non-text modalities. Treat the calculator as a planning tool, not an invoice.

Contact

The fastest way to reach the site is by email. Suggestions, pricing corrections, missing models, and feedback of any kind are welcome.