
1 spine = 1 novel
β 8 novels
average novels
A typical novel runs about 90,000 words (~120,000 tokens), so a million tokens holds roughly eight of them.
basis: 90,000 words per novel
A million tokens, measured in
The most intuitive yardstick there is. A million tokens holds about eight novels, 96% of the Bible, the full Lord of the Rings with room for a reread, but only 42% of Game of Thrones.

1 spine = 1 novel
β 8 novels
average novels
A typical novel runs about 90,000 words (~120,000 tokens), so a million tokens holds roughly eight of them.
basis: 90,000 words per novel

the 7 books β filled part = 1M tokens
β 69% of Harry Potter
of the complete 7-book series
The full Harry Potter series is 1,084,170 words β about 1.45 million tokens. A million tokens gets you past Order of the Phoenix and into the early chapters of Half-Blood Prince.
basis: Series total 1,084,170 words

2 copies β filled part = 1M tokens
β 1.3 Γ War and Peace
copies of War and Peace
Tolstoyβs epic is about 587,000 words in English translation (~780,000 tokens). A million tokens covers it with room for a second read of the first third.
basis: 587,000 words per copy

2 copies β filled part = 1M tokens
β 1.6 Γ Lord of the Rings
copies of the trilogy
Tolkien's trilogy is about 481,000 words (~641,000 tokens). A million tokens covers the full trilogy with room for more than half a reread.
basis: 481,000 words (trilogy without appendices)

1 Bible β filled part = 1M tokens
β 96% of the Bible
of the King James Bible
The King James Bible is about 783,000 words (~1.04 million tokens). A million tokens gets you through almost the entire text β falling just short at Revelation.
basis: 783,137 words (KJV)

the 5 books β filled part = 1M tokens
β 42% of Game of Thrones
of the 5 published ASOIAF books
George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire is about 1,770,000 words (~2.36 million tokens). A million tokens covers the first two books and about 30% of A Storm of Swords.
basis: 1,770,000 words (5 published books)

1 spine = 1 screenplay
β 37 movie screenplays
feature-film screenplays
A feature screenplay is around 20,000 words (~27,000 tokens), so a million tokens holds about 37 moviesβ worth of scripts.
basis: 20,000 words per screenplay
Books are the most intuitive yardstick for token scale. Most people have held a Harry Potter novel or seen War and Peace on a shelf β so saying "a million tokens is eight novels" lands instantly. For developers building retrieval systems, these comparisons also answer a practical question: can your model's context window hold the entire reference text, or do you need to chunk and retrieve?
Everything on this page is exactly one million tokens. So the price of having a model read β or write β all of it is simply each model's per-million rate. Updated 2026-07-28.
| Model | Read all of it (input) | Write all of it (output) |
|---|---|---|
| GPT-5.6 Sol | $5 | $30 |
| GPT-5.5 Pro | $30 | $180 |
| Claude Fable 5 | $10 | $50 |
| GPT-5.6 Terra | $2.50 | $15 |
| GPT-5.5 | $5 | $30 |
| Claude Opus 4.8 | $5 | $25 |
| Claude Sonnet 5 | $2 | $10 |
| Gemini 3.1 Pro | $2 | $12 |
| Gemini 3.5 Flash | $1.50 | $9 |
| GPT-5.6 Luna | $1 | $6 |
| Claude Haiku 4.5 | $1 | $5 |
| Gemini 3 Flash | $0.50 | $3 |
From $0.50 to $180 for the same million tokens. Try your own budget in the calculator β
Or start over with the full picture β scale, prices, and the budget calculator.