Processing or generating 500 words (approximately 660 tokens) with Claude Opus 4.8 (OpenRouter) ranges from $0.00033 (cached input) to $0.0165 (full generation).
Quick answer
For 500 words, Claude Opus 4.8 (OpenRouter) processes approximately 660 tokens. That costs $0.0033 as uncached input, $0.00033 with the modeled cache discount, or $0.0165 when generated as output.
Method & trust
The estimate converts the selected English word count with the model tokenizer family, then applies the published input/output price per million tokens. Real prompts vary with code, formatting, language, and system instructions.
You send 500 words as prompt context, documentation, or background knowledge.
Claude Opus 4.8 (OpenRouter) drafts a complete 500 words article, chapter, or code module.
400 words input prompt + 100 words output reply.
| Model | Provider | Input Cost (500 words) | Cached Input Cost | Output Cost (500 words) | Context Limit |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Claude Opus 4.8 (OpenRouter) (Current) | anthropic | $0.0033 | $0.00033 | $0.0165 | 1,000,000 |
| GPT-5.6 Sol | openai | $0.0032 | $0.00032 | $0.0192 | 1,050,000 |
| GPT-5.6 Cyber | openai | $0.008 | $0.0008 | $0.048 | 1,050,000 |
| GPT-5.5 Standard | openai | $0.0032 | $0.00032 | $0.0192 | 512,000 |
| GPT-5.5 Pro | openai | $0.0192 | $0.00192 | $0.1152 | 512,000 |
| o3-pro (Frontier Reasoning) | openai | $0.0128 | $0.00128 | $0.0512 | 1,000,000 |
For Claude Opus 4.8 (OpenRouter) (claude_bpe tokenizer), 500 words is approximately 660 tokens (an average ratio of 1.32 tokens per word in English). Code, technical vocabulary, and non-English scripts will have higher token densities.
Sending 500 words as input costs $0.0033 (or $0.00033 with prompt caching). Generating 500 words as output costs $0.0165. Output tokens are more expensive because autoregressive token generation requires significantly more computation per token.
Yes! If your input text is part of a repeated context, prompt caching saves 50% to 90% (costing $0.00033). For non-urgent asynchronous batch processing, 24-hour batch queues provide a flat 50% discount across all tokens (costing $0.00165 for input, $0.00825 for output).
At an average human reading speed of 250 words per minute, 500 words takes approximately 2 minutes to read. In contrast, Claude Opus 4.8 (OpenRouter) can process or generate this text in seconds.