diff --git a/langchain/llms/base.py b/langchain/llms/base.py
index df81242f63..60728841be 100644
--- a/langchain/llms/base.py
+++ b/langchain/llms/base.py
@@ -6,6 +6,27 @@ from typing import Any, List, Mapping, Optional
 class LLM(ABC):
     """LLM wrapper should take in a prompt and return a string."""
 
+    def get_num_tokens(self, text: str) -> int:
+        """Get the number of tokens present in the text."""
+        # TODO: this method may not be exact.
+        # TODO: this method may differ based on model (eg codex).
+        try:
+            from transformers import GPT2TokenizerFast
+        except ImportError:
+            raise ValueError(
+                "Could not import transformers python package. "
+                "This is needed in order to calculate max_tokens_for_prompt. "
+                "Please it install it with `pip install transformers`."
+            )
+        # create a GPT-3 tokenizer instance
+        tokenizer = GPT2TokenizerFast.from_pretrained("gpt2")
+
+        # tokenize the text using the GPT-3 tokenizer
+        tokenized_text = tokenizer.tokenize(text)
+
+        # calculate the number of tokens in the tokenized text
+        return len(tokenized_text)
+
     @abstractmethod
     def __call__(self, prompt: str, stop: Optional[List[str]] = None) -> str:
         """Run the LLM on the given prompt and input."""
diff --git a/langchain/llms/openai.py b/langchain/llms/openai.py
index 2ea83ee77c..9de56f0ce8 100644
--- a/langchain/llms/openai.py
+++ b/langchain/llms/openai.py
@@ -179,24 +179,7 @@ class OpenAI(LLM, BaseModel):
 
                 max_tokens = openai.max_token_for_prompt("Tell me a joke.")
         """
-        # TODO: this method may not be exact.
-        # TODO: this method may differ based on model (eg codex).
-        try:
-            from transformers import GPT2TokenizerFast
-        except ImportError:
-            raise ValueError(
-                "Could not import transformers python package. "
-                "This is needed in order to calculate max_tokens_for_prompt. "
-                "Please it install it with `pip install transformers`."
-            )
-        # create a GPT-3 tokenizer instance
-        tokenizer = GPT2TokenizerFast.from_pretrained("gpt2")
-
-        # tokenize the text using the GPT-3 tokenizer
-        tokenized_text = tokenizer.tokenize(prompt)
-
-        # calculate the number of tokens in the tokenized text
-        num_tokens = len(tokenized_text)
+        num_tokens = self.get_num_tokens(prompt)
 
         # get max context size for model by name
         max_size = self.modelname_to_contextsize(self.model_name)