Multimodal Token Pricing: Vision Tiles, Audio & Video Math
When you submit a 4K image, a voice recording, or a 10-minute video to an AI model, the API converts pixels and acoustic waves into equivalent token units. Here are the exact conversion algorithms.
1. Vision Tokenization: The 512px Patch Grid
OpenAI and Anthropic convert raster images into tokens using vision transformers (ViT). Under OpenAI's high-detail mode:
- The image is first scaled to fit within a 2048 x 2048 square.
- The shortest side is then scaled to 768px.
- The resulting image is sliced into a grid of 512 x 512 pixel tiles.
- Each 512px tile costs exactly 170 tokens, plus a base fee of 85 tokens per image.
2. Video Tokenization: Temporal Sampling at 1 Frame Per Second
Google Gemini processes video natively within its 1M token context. Instead of ingesting 30 or 60 frames per second (which would exhaust context in seconds), video is sampled at 1 frame per second (1 fps).
Each 1-second video frame is converted to approximately 258 tokens. A 10-minute (600 seconds) video clip consumes:
3. Audio Tokenization & Speech Rates
Audio APIs operate either via dedicated speech models (OpenAI Whisper at $0.006/minute) or native multimodal input tokens (Gemini audio input at ~32 tokens per second / $0.002 per minute).
Calculate Vision & Audio Tokens
Simulate image dimensions, fps, and audio minutes.