Verified October 2026

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Tokens per word in Russian

Russian averages about 2.4 tokens per word on current BPE tokenizers, which is 80% more tokens than the same count in English. Cyrillic is under-represented in most vocabularies, so each word becomes two to three tokens.

2.4Tokens per word
0.42words per token
2,400Tokens per 1,000 words
+80%vs English

Russian to tokens table

Words → Tokens (Russian, 2.4 tokens per word)
WordsTokens
100240
250600
5001,200
1,0002,400
2,5006,000
5,00012,000
10,00024,000
25,00060,000
50,000120,000
100,000240,000

Language comparison

LanguageTokens per wordTokens for 1,000Cost multiplier vs English
English1.331,3301.00×
Spanish1.71,7001.28×
French1.81,8001.35×
German1.91,9001.43×
Portuguese1.71,7001.28×
Russian2.42,4001.80×
Arabic2.92,9002.18×
Hindi3.23,2002.41×
Chinese1.51,5001.13×
Japanese1.81,8001.35×

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 Russian

Cost of 2,400 tokens (1,000 words) — USD, rates verified October 2026
#ModelProviderInputOutputBlended
1GPT-6 LunaOpenAI$0.00024$0.0012$0.00054
2GPT-5.6 LunaOpenAI$0.00048$0.00288$0.0012
3GPT-5.4 nanoOpenAI$0.00048$0.003$0.00123
4Gemini 3.5 Flash-LiteGoogle Gemini$0.00072$0.006$0.00222
5DeepSeek V4.1 FlashDeepSeek$0.00072$0.00288$0.00144
6GPT-5.4 miniOpenAI$0.0018$0.0108$0.0045
7Gemini 3.8 FlashGoogle Gemini$0.0018$0.009$0.00405
8Gemini 3.7 FlashGoogle Gemini$0.0018$0.009$0.00405
9Claude Haiku 4.5Anthropic$0.0024$0.012$0.0054
10Gemini 2.5 ProGoogle Gemini$0.003$0.024$0.009
11Grok 4.3xAI Grok$0.003$0.006$0.0045
12DeepSeek V4 ProDeepSeek$0.00317$0.0095$0.00554
13Gemini 3.5 FlashGoogle Gemini$0.0036$0.0216$0.009
14GPT-5.2OpenAI$0.0042$0.0336$0.0126
15GPT-6.1 SolOpenAI$0.0048$0.024$0.0108
16GPT-6 SolOpenAI$0.0048$0.024$0.0108
17GPT-5.6 TerraOpenAI$0.0048$0.0288$0.012
18GPT-4.1OpenAI$0.0048$0.0192$0.0096
19Claude Sonnet 5Anthropic$0.0048$0.024$0.0108
20Gemini 3.1 Pro (Preview)Google Gemini$0.0048$0.0288$0.012
21Grok 4.6xAI Grok$0.0048$0.0144$0.0084
22GPT-5.4OpenAI$0.006$0.036$0.015
23Claude Sonnet 4.6Anthropic$0.0072$0.036$0.0162
24GPT-5.6 SolOpenAI$0.0096$0.048$0.0216
25GPT-5.5OpenAI$0.012$0.072$0.03
26Claude Opus 5Anthropic$0.012$0.06$0.027
27GPT-6 AstraOpenAI$0.024$0.12$0.054
28Claude Fable 5.1Anthropic$0.024$0.12$0.054

Input = 2,400 prompt tokens. Output = 2,400 generated tokens. Blended = input + 25% of output, the same weighting used across this site.

What this means for a multilingual product

If you serve Russian and English from the same budget, Russian consumes 1.8× the tokens for the same number of words. Either the price per token absorbs that, or the Russian 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 Russian?

About 2,400 tokens, using 2.4 tokens per word. That is 80% more tokens than the same count in English (1,330).

Why is Russian more expensive per word?

Cyrillic is under-represented in most vocabularies, so each word becomes two to three tokens. 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 Russian?

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.

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