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AI

AI got 300× cheaper

In March 2023 OpenAI charged $30 for a million tokens. In September 2026 its cheap model costs 10 cents.

Numbers as of 8 Oct 2026

The full story

  1. AI got 300 times cheaper: OpenAI's price for 1 million tokens. Nested circles sized by price: GPT-4, March 2023, 30 dollars; GPT-4 Turbo, November 2023, 10 dollars; GPT-4o, May 2024, 5 dollars; GPT-6 Luna, September 2026, 10 cents. Top model in 2023: 30 dollars. Cheap model today: 10 cents. So why i
  2. OpenAI, what 1 dollar of AI can read. In 2023 on GPT-4, about 25,000 words, a small grey dot. In 2026 on GPT-6 Luna, about 7.5 million words, a big green circle. That is the whole Harry Potter series about 7 times, for 1 dollar. Why: A token is about ¾ of a word. AI is billed per million tokens. Lun
  3. OpenAI, top model versus top model. The catch: not the same model. GPT-4 in 2023, 30 dollars per million tokens, a big grey circle. GPT-6 Sol, the top model in 2026, 2 dollars, a smaller green circle. 15 times cheaper like for like, not 300. Why: Sol is the top model, for hard tasks. $2 per million
  4. Google, AI tokens processed a month. Cheaper, so people used way more. May 2024: 9.7 trillion, a tiny dot. May 2026: 3.2 quadrillion, a big green circle. 330 times more AI use in two years. Google's own counts, not audited. Why: Over 900M people use Gemini. every month, Google, May 2026. AI answers
  5. OpenAI, yearly revenue run rate. So the bill went up, not down. December 2023: under 2 billion dollars. September 2026: about 50 billion dollars. At least 25 times more revenue while each word got cheaper. Why: ChatGPT subscriptions people pay monthly. Selling AI to apps companies pay per token. Eac
  6. Nvidia, data-center sales a year. And the chips got the money. Fiscal 2023: 15 billion dollars. Fiscal 2026: 194 billion dollars. 13 times more. Every cheap word still runs on a chip. Why: Every token runs on a chip. in a data center. Next: up to 10× cheaper tokens. Nvidia's claim for its Rubin chip
  7. Cheaper AI: who wins? Choices: OpenAI, Google, Nvidia, Other. The seller, or the chip maker? Add a comment. Follow Green Owl if you want more.

A token is a piece of a word. AI companies charge by the million.

OpenAI's list price for 1 million tokens going in, at each launch: • GPT-4, March 2023: $30 • GPT-4 Turbo, November 2023: $10 • GPT-4o, May 2024: $5 • GPT-6 Luna, 22 September 2026: $0.10

$30 to $0.10 is 300 times cheaper in three and a half years.

How to read the picture: each circle's size is the price. The green dot is drawn at its true size.

What this does NOT say: • These are different products. GPT-4 was OpenAI's top model in 2023. Luna is its cheap model today. OpenAI's top models cost more. • This is the price for text going in. Text coming out costs more ($60 then, $0.50 now). • This is the price for companies that build on OpenAI. It is not the price of a ChatGPT subscription. • A lower price per token does not mean a lower total bill. Companies use far more tokens now.

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Where the numbers come from

Companies in this picture

GoogleNvidiaOpenAI

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