BLOG POST → TOKENS

How many tokens is a blog post?

Last updated

A typical 1,200-word blog post is about 1,600 tokens. Short posts run near 700 tokens, in-depth guides at 3,000 words are about 4,000 tokens, and markdown formatting adds a few percent on top.

QUICK CONVERTER

≈ Words

1,200

≈ Tokens

1,596

Estimates use ~1.33 tokens per English word. For an exact count of real text — including code, JSON, and other languages — paste it into the token counterand choose your model.

The detail

Blog content is a standard unit of AI writing work. Generating a 1,200-word post means paying for ~1,600 output tokens — and output rates are typically 3-8x input rates, so generation costs meaningfully more than reading the same text.

Editing workflows flip the ratio: sending a full draft for revision costs ~1,600 input tokens plus the revised output. A full rewrite therefore bills roughly double the post length, while targeted section edits cost a fraction of that.

Markdown structure (headings, links, lists, code snippets) tokenizes heavier than plain prose. A technical post with code examples can run 1.5-2x the token count its word count suggests, so budget accordingly for developer-focused content.

Blog content lengths in tokens

Post~Words~Tokens
Social caption (~50 words)5067
Short post (~500 words)500665
Standard post (~1,200 words)1,2001,596
Long-form guide (~3,000 words)3,0003,990
Pillar page (~6,000 words)6,0007,980

FAQ

How many tokens is a blog post? — FAQ

What does it cost to generate a blog post with an LLM?

A 1,200-word post is ~1,600 output tokens. At $4-$30 per million output tokens that is $0.006-$0.05 per draft — the real cost in practice is iterations: five revisions multiply it accordingly.

How many tokens is a 3,000-word long-form article?

About 4,000 tokens of plain prose, or 5,000-6,000 with heavy markdown, tables, and code blocks. Still small relative to modern context windows.

Do headings and links change the token count?

Yes, modestly. Markdown syntax, URLs, and anchor text add tokens beyond the visible words — typically 3-10% for a normal post, more if it is link-dense.