AI vs Human Writing Cost Calculator
Compare a human writer against AI drafting once editing time is counted.
Generating a draft with a model costs pennies, so AI looks unbeatably cheap next to a writer at $0.10 a word — until you count the hours someone spends fixing that draft. This tool settles the cost per word AI vs human by pricing both sides honestly: your monthly word count times a human rate on one side, and the model's token cost plus real editing time on the other. Set how much editing a draft needs and what your editor is paid, and you see whether AI actually saves money and how much time AI saves writing. The editing line is the whole point, because that overhead is where the easy savings quietly disappear.
Read the guide: AI vs Human Writer Cost: The Honest ComparisonYour writing workload
Editing overhead
Saved per month with AI
$1,599.98
80% cheaper than a human writer, editing included
- Human writer
- $2,000.00
- AI total (with editing)
- $400.02
- Writing hours saved
- 70 h
- Cost/word — AI vs human
- $0.020 · $0.100
Where the AI money goes
- Generation (tokens)$0.02
- Human editing$400.00
- AI total$400.02
Raw generation is usually pennies. The editing time to make a draft publishable is the real cost, which is why it gets its own line.
Token prices come from a shared table updated January 2026 — verify against the provider's pricing page. Word-to-token and writing-speed figures are approximations (~1.33 tokens/word, ~250 finished words/hour for a human), so treat the result as a planning estimate, not a quote.
How it works
- 1
Enter your monthly words and human rate
Put in how many words you publish a month and what a human writer charges per word. Freelance rates commonly run $0.05 to $0.50 a word, which sets the baseline the AI route has to beat.
- 2
Choose the model
Pick the model you would draft with. Its token price drives the raw generation cost, which for most chat models works out to a few cents even for thousands of words.
- 3
Set the editing overhead
This is the honest part. Set how much editing a draft needs, your editor's hourly rate and how fast they work. The tool adds that editing cost to the token cost and compares the total against the human writer, per month and per word.
Instant & 100% private — nothing is uploaded
Every calculation runs locally in your browser. The prompts, token counts and numbers you enter stay on your own device and are never sent to a server — nothing is stored, logged or shared.
Frequently asked questions
- Is AI writing really cheaper than a human writer?
- For raw generation, almost always — a few thousand words costs cents in tokens. Once you add the human hours to edit a draft into something publishable, the gap narrows and can flip. This calculator makes that editing cost visible so you compare the true totals, not just the token bill.
- Why does editing overhead matter so much?
- An AI draft is rarely ship-ready. Fact-checking, restructuring and rewriting weak passages take a skilled person time, and that time is billed at an hourly rate, not a per-token one. On a large word count the editing line usually dwarfs the generation cost, which is why it gets its own field here.
- How do you convert words to tokens and hours?
- English runs about 1.33 tokens per word, so the draft is priced as output tokens plus a small share of input tokens for your brief. For time, the tool assumes a human writing finished copy manages roughly 250 words an hour, and your editor works at the speed you enter, so the hours-saved figure reflects real drafting effort.
- How accurate are the cost figures?
- Token prices come from a shared table with a date shown under the result, and providers change them often, so verify against the official pricing page. The word-to-token ratio, human writing speed and editing estimates are approximations you can tune. Treat the output as a planning estimate rather than an exact quote.
Important
For planning and estimates only. Prices come from a published rate table dated on the page; providers change pricing without notice, and token counts here are approximations. Confirm against the provider’s own pricing before you budget or commit.
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