Gemini API pricing guide & calculator
Gemini API prices range from $0.30 to $2 per million input tokens and $2.50 to $12 per million output tokens, depending on the model. Below: every current model’s price, what common jobs cost per month, and a calculator for your own usage.
Current Gemini API prices
| Model | Input | Cached input | Output | Batch in / out |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gemini 3.1 Pro (Preview)flagship | $2 | $0.20 | $12 | $1 / $6 |
| Gemini 3.8 Flashbalanced | $0.75 | $0.075 | $3.75 | $0.38 / $1.88 |
| Gemini 3.5 Flash-Litefast | $0.30 | $0.03 | $2.50 | $0.15 / $1.25 |
Per million tokens, standard tier, in US dollars. Checked October 10, 2026 against Google’s official pricing. “Cached input” is the price for text you reuse across requests, like long instructions.
- Gemini 3.1 Pro (Preview): Preview model. Output price includes thinking tokens.
- Gemini 3.8 Flash: Promotional price through December 31, 2026; rises to $1.50 / $7.50 after.
Estimate your monthly Gemini API cost
Pick a job and how many you’ll run a month. Gemini’s models are compared with OpenAI and Claude; tap a provider to add or remove it. How the estimates work.
| Model | Per ticket | Per month | vs. cheapest |
|---|---|---|---|
| Claude Haiku 5.5Anthropic · fast | $0.00042 | $0.85 | 1× |
| GPT-6 LunaOpenAI · fast | $0.00042 | $0.85 | 1× |
| Gemini 3.5 Flash-LiteGoogle · fast | $0.0016 | $3.25 | 3.8× |
| Gemini 3.8 FlashGoogle · balanced | $0.0032 | $6.38 | 7.5× |
| Claude Sonnet 5.5Anthropic · balanced | $0.0085 | $17.00 | 20× |
| GPT-6.1 SolOpenAI · balanced | $0.0085 | $17.00 | 20× |
| Gemini 3.1 Pro (Preview)Google · flagship | $0.0092 | $18.40 | 22× |
| Claude Opus 5.5Anthropic · flagship | $0.0170 | $34.00 | 40× |
| Claude Fable 5.1Anthropic · flagship | $0.0425 | $85.00 | 100× |
| GPT-6 AstraOpenAI · flagship | $0.0425 | $85.00 | 100× |
Published list prices checked October 10, 2026, before tax. Token counts are estimates and vary by provider, since each counts text a little differently. Subscriptions like Claude Pro, ChatGPT Plus, or Google AI Pro (about $20 a month) are for using the chat apps yourself and can’t be called from your own software. Calculated in your browser; nothing is saved.
Which Gemini model should you use?
Google’s pricing is the most aggressive of the big three providers. Gemini 3.8 Flash is the everyday model for most jobs, at $0.75 per million input tokens and $3.75 per million output tokens under a promotional price that runs through December 31, 2026. Even at its regular price of $1.50 / $7.50, it’s cheaper than the middle-tier models from OpenAI and Anthropic.
Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite is the budget option at $0.30 / $2.50, suited to classification, extraction, and other high-volume, simple tasks. Gemini 3.1 Pro, Google’s most capable text model, is still in preview and costs $2 / $12 for prompts up to 200,000 tokens. That’s roughly what OpenAI and Anthropic charge for their middle models, not their flagships, which makes Gemini 3.1 Pro the cheapest top-tier model from the big three by a wide margin.
Google also sells many specialized models: live audio, transcription, text-to-speech, image generation, video (Veo), and music. Those are priced per minute, per image, or per second and aren’t included here. This page covers the text models most businesses use for writing, analysis, and automation.
What common jobs cost on Gemini
Monthly cost at standard prices, with no caching or batch discounts, for typical volumes. The token sizes behind each job are explained in how we calculate.
| Job (per month) | Gemini 3.1 Pro (Preview) | Gemini 3.8 Flash | Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1,000 × draft an email | $6.4 | $2.1 | $1.24 |
| 2,000 × answer a support ticket | $18.4 | $6.38 | $3.25 |
| 300 × summarize a 10-page document | $6.72 | $2.36 | $1.16 |
| 100 × write a 1,500-word article | $2.64 | $0.84 | $0.536 |
| 5,000 × write a product description | $20.8 | $6.75 | $4.1 |
| 3,000 × chatbot conversation (10 turns) | $144 | $49.5 | $25.8 |
| 200 × ai coding or research agent task | $84 | $30 | $14 |
Answering 2,000 support tickets a month costs about $6.38 on Gemini 3.8 Flash and $18.4 on Gemini 3.1 Pro. The same job costs about $17 on Claude Sonnet 5.5 or GPT-6.1 Sol, so Gemini Flash does it for roughly a third of the price, if its answers are good enough for your customers.
How Gemini compares on price
In the middle of the range, Gemini 3.8 Flash is the cheapest of the three major providers. At the top end, Gemini 3.1 Pro’s $2 / $12 compares with $10 / $50 for both GPT-6 Astra and Claude Fable 5.1. At the budget end it’s a different story: GPT-6 Luna and Claude Haiku 5.5 cost $0.10 / $0.50, which is cheaper than Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite for short prompts.
| Balanced model | Input / output per 1M | 2,000 tickets |
|---|---|---|
| Gemini 3.8 FlashGoogle | $0.75 / $3.75 | $6.38 |
| Claude Sonnet 5.5Anthropic | $2 / $10 | $17 |
| GPT-6.1 SolOpenAI | $2 / $10 | $17 |
Discounts: batch, caching, and free use
Batch and Flex: 50% off. Google’s Batch API and Flex tier both halve input and output prices for work that can wait. A Priority tier costs more for faster, more reliable processing.
Context caching: 90% off repeated input, plus storage. Cached input on Gemini costs a tenth of the normal input price ($0.075 instead of $0.75 per million on 3.8 Flash). Unlike OpenAI and Anthropic, Google also charges an hourly storage fee for keeping content in the cache, so caching suits content that’s reused heavily within a short period.
A genuine free tier. Many Gemini models, including the Flash and Flash-Lite models, can be used for free through Google AI Studio and the free API tier, with rate limits. It’s the easiest way to prototype without a credit card. Gemini 3.1 Pro isn’t on the free tier.
Free tier: Free tier with rate limits on many models, including the Flash and Flash-Lite models, through Google AI Studio.
What surprises people on the bill
The Flash price doubles in January
Gemini 3.8 Flash’s $0.75 / $3.75 price is promotional through December 31, 2026. After that, Google lists $1.50 / $7.50, and the same doubling applies to its cached and batch prices. Budget for the regular price if you’re planning beyond this year.
Long prompts cost more on Pro
Gemini 3.1 Pro charges $4 / $18 instead of $2 / $12 for prompts over 200,000 tokens. Most business jobs stay well under that, but long-document and agent work can cross it.
Thinking is billed as output
Google’s output prices include “thinking” tokens, the reasoning the model does before answering. On hard problems those can make the output side, already the expensive side, much larger than the visible answer.
Search grounding has its own price
Grounding answers in Google Search is free up to a monthly allowance on the newer models and then charged per thousand requests. If your app searches the web for most answers, that can matter as much as token costs. It isn’t included in the calculator.
Preview models can change
Gemini 3.1 Pro is labeled a preview. Preview models can change behavior or pricing, and get replaced, more readily than stable releases. That’s fine for testing; for production, plan for a switch.
Gemini API vs. Google AI Plus
Google’s consumer AI plans and the Gemini API are separate. Google AI Pro ($19.99 a month) gives you more Gemini in Google’s apps, plus storage and other Google One benefits. The API is for building Gemini into your own software, and you pay per token, or nothing at all within the free tier’s limits.
For comparison, $20 of API usage buys about 9,523 email drafts on Gemini 3.8 Flash, using our token estimates, before you even count the free tier. If you live in Gmail, Docs, and Drive, a Google AI plan puts Gemini where you already work. If you want AI running inside your own tools or answering customers automatically, use the API.
| Google subscription | Price |
|---|---|
| Google AI Plus | $4.99/mo |
| Google AI Pro | $19.99/mo |
| Google AI Ultra | $99.99/mo (higher tier also offered) |
Who the Gemini API is a good fit for
Gemini is the price leader for most mid-range and top-end text work, and the free tier makes it the easiest API to try. It’s a natural fit if your business already runs on Google Workspace or Google Cloud, and for high-volume jobs where Flash’s quality is good enough.
The trade-offs are the promotional pricing that ends this year, preview status on the top model, and a busier price list with storage, grounding, and tier variations to understand. As always, test your real task on two or three models: Gemini often wins on cost, but the cheapest model that’s good enough is the one to pick.
Frequently asked questions
How much does the Gemini API cost?
Per million tokens on the paid tier: Gemini 3.1 Pro (preview) is $2 input / $12 output for prompts up to 200,000 tokens, Gemini 3.8 Flash is $0.75 / $3.75 through December 31, 2026 ($1.50 / $7.50 after), and Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite is $0.30 / $2.50. Batch and Flex are half price.
Is the Gemini API free?
Partly. Google offers a free tier with rate limits on many Gemini models, including the Flash and Flash-Lite models, through Google AI Studio. Gemini 3.1 Pro and some specialized models are paid only. Higher limits and production use require the paid tier.
Does Google AI Pro include Gemini API access?
No. Google AI Pro and the other Google AI plans are consumer subscriptions for the Gemini app and Google services. The Gemini API is billed separately, per token, with its own free tier.
Is Gemini cheaper than OpenAI and Claude?
For most mid-range and top-end work, yes. Gemini 3.8 Flash costs less than GPT-6.1 Sol or Claude Sonnet 5.5, and Gemini 3.1 Pro costs a fraction of GPT-6 Astra or Claude Fable 5.1. At the budget end, GPT-6 Luna and Claude Haiku 5.5 are cheaper than Gemini Flash-Lite for short prompts.
Will Gemini Flash prices go up?
Google lists Gemini 3.8 Flash at a promotional $0.75 / $3.75 per million tokens through December 31, 2026, and $1.50 / $7.50 after that. Check Google’s pricing page for any change.