The latest articles on DEV Community by ylyn (@ylynbuilds). https://dev.to/ylynbuilds https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=90,height=90,fit=cover,gravity=auto,format=auto/https:%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Fuser%2Fprofile_image%2F4057875%2F1235dfc4-3ab8-42c2-80f6-f02cac8ed63d.png https://dev.to/ylynbuilds en ylyn Wed, 02 Sep 2026 01:56:55 +0000 https://dev.to/ylynbuilds/paste-a-prompt-see-the-bill-a-free-prompt-cost-calculator-for-llm-apis-19ph https://dev.to/ylynbuilds/paste-a-prompt-see-the-bill-a-free-prompt-cost-calculator-for-llm-apis-19ph <h2> The problem </h2> <p>Before you ship a long system prompt or dump a chat transcript into an agent, it’s hard to answer: “What does this cost per call?”</p> <h2> What I built </h2> <p>A free tool: paste prompt / transcript → estimated tokens + USD against official model list prices.</p> <p>👉 <a href="https://tools.aicostgate.com/prompt-cost" rel="noopener noreferrer">https://tools.aicostgate.com/prompt-cost</a></p> <p>No signup. Built for people running Cursor / Claude Code / custom agents who care about token spend.</p> <h2> How I use it </h2> <ol> <li>Paste the system + user prompt you actually send</li> <li>Pick the model</li> <li>Sanity-check before wiring it into a loop</li> </ol> <h2> Related free tools </h2> <ul> <li>Pricing leaderboard: <a href="https://tools.aicostgate.com/prices" rel="noopener noreferrer">https://tools.aicostgate.com/prices</a> </li> <li>Monthly agent burn estimator: <a href="https://tools.aicostgate.com/burn" rel="noopener noreferrer">https://tools.aicostgate.com/burn</a> </li> <li>Budget-aware MCP / Cursor templates: <a href="https://tools.aicostgate.com/mcp" rel="noopener noreferrer">https://tools.aicostgate.com/mcp</a> </li> </ul> <p>Feedback welcome — especially on tokenizer approximations vs real provider billing.</p> ai llm productivity webdev