$re = '/(?i)\b(\d+) ?m(?:m|illions?)?\b/';
$str = 'I need $ 150000000, or 150 million,1 millions, 15 Million, 15million, 15Million, 15 m, 15 M, 15m, 15M, 15 MM, 15MM, 5 thousand';
$subst = "\1000000";
$result = preg_replace($re, $subst, $str);
echo "The result of the substitution is ".$result;
Please keep in mind that these code samples are automatically generated and are not guaranteed to work. If you find any syntax errors, feel free to submit a bug report. For a full regex reference for PHP, please visit: http://php.net/manual/en/ref.pcre.php