How Many PDF Pages Is 1 Million Tokens?

One million tokens can process about 650 visually-rendered PDF pages (preserving layout, tables, and figures at ~1,500 tokens per page).

Why this matters

PDFs combine text, tables, and figures, making them one of the most token-intensive formats. Understanding the per-page token cost helps enterprises estimate the expense of processing contracts, research papers, and financial reports through AI.

β‰ˆ 650 PDF pages visually-processed PDF pages, drawn to scale

1 block = 1 PDF page

The answer

β‰ˆ 650 PDF pages

visually-processed PDF pages

The math

Basis assumption

~1,500 tokens per page with layout

Calculation

When a model reads a PDF page as both text and image (preserving layout, tables and figures), each page costs ~1,500 tokens. Text-only extraction is cheaper: ~2,000 pages per million tokens.

Result

1,000,000 tokens = 650 visually-processed PDF pages

Real-world references

To put this in perspective, here are some well-known examples for comparison.

See also

Explore further