Gemini API Pricing, Free Tier & Rate Limits (2026 Developer Breakdown)
Understanding the Google Gemini API pricing structure and rate limit quotas is critical for building cost-effective production applications. Google offers both a Free Tier in Google AI Studio for prototyping and a Pay-As-You-Go Tier for production enterprise workloads.
Free Tier vs Pay-As-You-Go Model Overview
| Feature | Free Tier (AI Studio) | Pay-As-You-Go Tier |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $0.00 | Pay per 1M tokens |
| Data Privacy | Prompts used to train models | Prompts NOT used to train models |
| Gemini 2.0 Flash RPM | 15 RPM | 2,000 RPM |
| Gemini 1.5 Pro RPM | 2 RPM | 360 - 1,000 RPM |
| Daily Request Cap | 1,500 RPD | Unlimited (based on quota tier) |
| Max Context Window | 1,000,000 Tokens | Up to 2,000,000 Tokens |
Token Pricing Breakdown (Pay-As-You-Go)
Google charges based on input tokens (prompt text, audio, images, video) and generated output tokens:
1. Gemini 2.0 Flash & Gemini 1.5 Flash (Workhorse Models)
- Input Tokens (prompts <= 128k): $0.075 - $0.10 per 1M tokens
- Input Tokens (prompts > 128k): $0.15 - $0.20 per 1M tokens
- Output Tokens: $0.30 - $0.40 per 1M tokens
- Context Caching Storage: $0.01875 - $0.025 per 1M tokens/hour
2. Gemini 1.5 Pro (Deep Code & Extended Context)
- Input Tokens (prompts <= 128k): $1.25 per 1M tokens
- Input Tokens (prompts > 128k): $2.50 per 1M tokens
- Output Tokens (prompts <= 128k): $5.00 per 1M tokens
- Output Tokens (prompts > 128k): $10.00 per 1M tokens
Gemini Consumer Subscription: Google One AI Premium
For non-API end users, Google offers Gemini Advanced through the Google One AI Premium plan at $19.99/month. This includes:
- Access to 1.5 Pro & 2.0 Flash with extended 1M context in chat
- Gemini integrations in Google Docs, Gmail, and Google Slides
- 2 TB of Google Drive cloud storage
