Category guide
Tokens Per Dollar: category guide
Answer in brief
Tokens per dollar is one million divided by a model’s price per million tokens. Every model has two answers, because input and output are priced apart, and a dollar buys far fewer output tokens than input tokens. What a dollar buys for your work depends on your mix of the two.
The arithmetic, in words
Model prices are quoted in dollars per million tokens. Turn the figure over and you have tokens per dollar: take one million and divide it by the price. Halve the price and a dollar buys twice the tokens.
Do it twice for every model. The input price gives input tokens per dollar: how much the model can read for a dollar. The output price gives output tokens per dollar: how much it can write. On 12 Nov 2026, the lowest listed input price for DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 was $0.022 per million tokens. The lowest listed output price was $0.233 per million tokens.
Why one number is never enough
Output costs more than input on nearly every listing, often several times more. So the same dollar buys a large pile of input tokens or a much smaller pile of output tokens. A single tokens-per-dollar figure has to assume how you split between them.
That split is your mix. Work that reads long documents and returns a short answer spends nearly all of its dollar on input. Work that writes spends it on output. The honest answer to what a dollar buys starts with which of the two you are buying.
Before you trust a tokens-per-dollar figure
Work through the questions in this order. Each one removes options the next would have wasted time on.
- Input tokens or output tokens?
A dollar buys many more input tokens than output tokens. A figure that does not say which is not yet a figure.
- At what mix?
A single blended figure assumes a split between input and output. Check that the split is close to yours.
- Is it the same model?
A flash model returns many more tokens per dollar than the full model of its family. Compare like with like.
- Do tokens mean the same thing?
Each model counts tokens with its own tokenizer. A million tokens on one model is not the same text as a million on another.
- What does one task use?
Tokens are not results. Measure the tokens one real task takes, then work out tasks per dollar.
- When was the price read?
Tokens per dollar moves whenever a price does. Read the date beside the price.
Terms this guide uses
- Tokens per dollar
Tokens per dollar is the number of tokens one dollar buys at a given price: one million divided by the price per million tokens.
- Token
A token is a piece of a word: the unit a model reads and writes, and the unit its use is billed in.
- Input tokens
Input tokens are everything sent to a model in a request: instructions, history, documents and the question.
- Output tokens
Output tokens are everything a model writes in reply, including any reasoning it does before the answer.
- Input to output mix
The input to output mix is the number of input tokens a workload uses for each output token.
Where Runcrate fits
Tokens Per Dollar names one provider as its editor’s choice and gives the reasons in full, so you can weigh them against your own brief.
125 models behind one OpenAI-compatible API. Each has its own input and output price.
One prepaid balance: every dollar you load is spent by the token.
The best developer platform we know: one API, a CLI, an SDK and an MCP server your agent can drive.
The same balance rents GPUs: 26 GPU models from $0.23/hr.
Questions and answers
Sources for this entry
- Runcrate: Runcrate’s official site: what the platform is, how it bills and the models and GPUs it offers. Read 12 Nov 2026.
- Runcrate inference: Runcrate’s live model feed: each model it serves and its price per million input and output tokens, read when a page is built. Read 12 Nov 2026.
- Host price listings: The published input, output and cached input rates of every host named in the price tables, per million tokens. Read 12 Nov 2026.
- Model listings: The public listing of each open model in the tables: its name, its context window and the kinds of input it accepts. Read 12 Nov 2026.
Checklists are original editorial guidance. Published prices do not establish availability.
Continue this reading path
Cite this entry
Tokens Per Dollar. “Tokens Per Dollar: category guide.” Content reviewed 12 Nov 2026. https://tokensperdollar.dev/guide