Home › Tools › Tokens per word: English

Tokens per word in English

English averages about 1.33 tokens per word on current BPE tokenizers. The baseline every provider quotes: 1 token ≈ 0.75 words ≈ 4 characters.

1.33Tokens per word

0.75words per token

1,330Tokens per 1,000 words

0%vs English

English to tokens table

Words → Tokens (English, 1.33 tokens per word)
Words	Tokens
100	133
250	333
500	665
1,000	1,330
2,500	3,325
5,000	6,650
10,000	13,300
25,000	33,250
50,000	66,500
100,000	133,000

Language comparison

Language	Tokens per word	Tokens for 1,000	Cost multiplier vs English
English	1.33	1,330	1.00×
Spanish	1.7	1,700	1.28×
French	1.8	1,800	1.35×
German	1.9	1,900	1.43×
Portuguese	1.7	1,700	1.28×
Russian	2.4	2,400	1.80×
Arabic	2.9	2,900	2.18×
Hindi	3.2	3,200	2.41×
Chinese	1.5	1,500	1.13×
Japanese	1.8	1,800	1.35×

Ratios are per word except Chinese and Japanese, which are per character. Comparing them directly is approximate — the honest way to budget is to tokenize a sample of your own corpus.

Cost of 1,000 words in English

Cost of 1,330 tokens (1,000 words) — USD, rates verified October 2026
#	Model	Provider	Input	Output	Blended
1	GPT-6 Luna	OpenAI	$0.00013	$0.00067	$0.0003
2	GPT-5.6 Luna	OpenAI	$0.00027	$0.0016	$0.00067
3	GPT-5.4 nano	OpenAI	$0.00027	$0.00166	$0.00068
4	Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite	Google Gemini	$0.0004	$0.00332	$0.00123
5	DeepSeek V4.1 Flash	DeepSeek	$0.0004	$0.0016	$0.0008
6	GPT-5.4 mini	OpenAI	$0.001	$0.00598	$0.00249
7	Gemini 3.8 Flash	Google Gemini	$0.001	$0.00499	$0.00224
8	Gemini 3.7 Flash	Google Gemini	$0.001	$0.00499	$0.00224
9	Claude Haiku 4.5	Anthropic	$0.00133	$0.00665	$0.00299
10	Gemini 2.5 Pro	Google Gemini	$0.00166	$0.0133	$0.00499
11	Grok 4.3	xAI Grok	$0.00166	$0.00332	$0.00249
12	DeepSeek V4 Pro	DeepSeek	$0.00176	$0.00527	$0.00307
13	Gemini 3.5 Flash	Google Gemini	$0.002	$0.012	$0.00499
14	GPT-5.2	OpenAI	$0.00233	$0.0186	$0.00698
15	GPT-6.1 Sol	OpenAI	$0.00266	$0.0133	$0.00598
16	GPT-6 Sol	OpenAI	$0.00266	$0.0133	$0.00598
17	GPT-5.6 Terra	OpenAI	$0.00266	$0.016	$0.00665
18	GPT-4.1	OpenAI	$0.00266	$0.0106	$0.00532
19	Claude Sonnet 5	Anthropic	$0.00266	$0.0133	$0.00598
20	Gemini 3.1 Pro (Preview)	Google Gemini	$0.00266	$0.016	$0.00665
21	Grok 4.6	xAI Grok	$0.00266	$0.00798	$0.00466
22	GPT-5.4	OpenAI	$0.00332	$0.0199	$0.00831
23	Claude Sonnet 4.6	Anthropic	$0.00399	$0.0199	$0.00898
24	GPT-5.6 Sol	OpenAI	$0.00532	$0.0266	$0.012
25	GPT-5.5	OpenAI	$0.00665	$0.0399	$0.0166
26	Claude Opus 5	Anthropic	$0.00665	$0.0333	$0.015
27	GPT-6 Astra	OpenAI	$0.0133	$0.0665	$0.0299
28	Claude Fable 5.1	Anthropic	$0.0133	$0.0665	$0.0299

Input = 1,330 prompt tokens. Output = 1,330 generated tokens. Blended = input + 25% of output, the same weighting used across this site.

What this means for a multilingual product

If you serve English and English from the same budget, English consumes 1.0× the tokens for the same number of words. Either the price per token absorbs that, or the English product quietly runs at a lower margin. Measuring the ratio on your own text is the only reliable way to price it.

FAQ

How many tokens is 1,000 words in English?

About 1,330 tokens, using 1.33 tokens per word. That is 0% fewer tokens than the same count in English (1,330).

Why is English more expensive per word?

The baseline every provider quotes: 1 token ≈ 0.75 words ≈ 4 characters. Providers bill per token, not per word, so a language that fragments into more tokens costs more for the same meaning.

How do I get an exact count for English?

Run a sample of your own text through the tokenizer of the model you will be billed on. Public ratios are averages; product names, numbers and formatting in your own data can move the result by 20% or more.

Keep going

Calculate a real monthly bill