If you are a developer exploring AI APIs for your next project, you have probably wondered: Is Google Gemini API free? The short answer is yes - Google offers a genuinely free tier for the Gemini API that requires no credit card. However, the complete picture involves understanding rate limits, geographic restrictions, model availability, and when you might need to upgrade to paid tiers.
In this comprehensive guide, we will explore everything you need to know about Google Gemini API pricing in 2025. Whether you are building a meeting transcription tool, a chatbot, or an AI-powered application, understanding these pricing structures will help you make informed decisions and optimize your costs.
Introduction to Google Gemini API
Google Gemini represents Google DeepMind's most capable family of AI models, designed to handle text, code, images, audio, and video. The Gemini API provides developers with programmatic access to these powerful models, enabling integration into applications, websites, and services.
What sets Gemini apart from competitors is its native multimodal capabilities - meaning it was built from the ground up to understand and generate content across multiple formats. This makes it particularly powerful for applications that need to process meeting recordings, analyze documents with images, or generate multimedia content.
The Gemini API is accessible through two primary channels: the Google AI Studio (ai.google.dev) for developers and small teams, and Vertex AI on Google Cloud for enterprise deployments. Both offer access to the same underlying models but with different features, pricing structures, and support levels.
The Gemini Model Family
Before diving into pricing, it is essential to understand the different Gemini models available. Each model represents a different balance of capability, speed, and cost:
- Gemini 3 Pro: The most advanced and expensive model, featuring state-of-the-art reasoning, 1 million token context window, and dynamic thinking capabilities. Released in November 2025.
- Gemini 2.5 Pro: A highly capable model with excellent reasoning abilities, suitable for complex tasks requiring deep analysis.
- Gemini 2.5 Flash: A balanced model offering good performance at faster speeds, ideal for production applications.
- Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite: The most cost-effective option, optimized for high-volume, simpler tasks.
- Gemini 2.0 Flash: The previous generation flash model, still widely used and cost-effective.
- Gemini 2.0 Flash-Lite: An even more economical option for basic AI tasks.
Free Tier Details: What You Get for Free
Google provides a genuinely free tier for the Gemini API that allows developers to experiment and build applications without any upfront cost. Here is what you get:
Models Available in the Free Tier
As of late 2025, the following models are available in the free tier:
- Gemini 2.5 Pro (limited)
- Gemini 2.5 Flash
- Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite
- Gemini 2.0 Flash
- Gemini 2.0 Flash-Lite
- Embedding models
- Audio processing models
Important Note: Gemini 3 Pro does not have a free API tier. You can try it for free in Google AI Studio through the web interface, but programmatic API access requires payment.
Free Tier Features
The free tier includes several valuable features:
- No credit card required: You can start building immediately without providing payment information.
- 1 million token context window: Access to the full context window capabilities on supported models.
- Multimodal input: Process text, images, and audio (on supported models).
- Full API functionality: Access to all API features including chat, content generation, and embeddings.
Important Caveats About the Free Tier
While the free tier is genuinely useful, there are important limitations to understand:
- Data Usage: Your prompts and responses may be used by Google to improve their products. This is a significant consideration for applications handling sensitive information.
- Rate Limits: The free tier has significantly lower rate limits compared to paid tiers, making it unsuitable for production applications with meaningful traffic.
- No SLA: There is no service level agreement for free tier users.
- Geographic Restrictions: The free tier is not available in certain regions (more on this later).
Rate Limits Explained: Free Tier vs Paid Tiers
Understanding rate limits is crucial for planning your application architecture. Rate limits control how many requests you can make to the Gemini API within specific timeframes.
How Rate Limits Work
Rate limits are applied per project, not per API key. This means all API keys associated with a project share the same rate limit pool. Requests per day (RPD) quotas reset at midnight Pacific time.
As of December 2025, Google moved from soft limits to hard enforcement using a token bucket approach. Previously, occasional bursts slightly exceeding limits might go unnoticed. Now, each dimension (RPM, TPM, RPD, IPM) maintains separate tracking, and exceeding any limit triggers immediate 429 responses.
Free Tier Rate Limits by Model
Here are the rate limits for the free tier as of late 2025:
Gemini 2.5 Pro:
- Requests per minute (RPM): 2-5
- Requests per day (RPD): 25-50
Gemini 2.5 Flash:
- Requests per minute (RPM): 10
- Requests per day (RPD): 250
Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite:
- Requests per minute (RPM): 15
- Requests per day (RPD): 1,000
Gemini 2.0 Flash:
- Requests per minute (RPM): 15
- Requests per day (RPD): 200
Gemini 2.0 Flash-Lite:
- Requests per minute (RPM): 30
- Requests per day (RPD): 200
Embedding Models:
- Requests per minute (RPM): 100
- Requests per day (RPD): 1,000
December 2025 Quota Changes
In December 2025, Google significantly tightened free tier quotas. Gemini 2.5 Flash daily free requests were cut dramatically, and stricter enforcement mechanisms were implemented. This caught many developers by surprise, resulting in unexpected 429 errors in their applications.
If you were relying on the free tier for production workloads, you likely need to upgrade to a paid tier or consider alternative APIs.
Paid Tier Rate Limits
Once you link a billing account, your project moves from Free tier to Tier 1. Continued usage automatically progresses toward Tier 2 and Tier 3 based on cumulative spending.
Tier 1 (Entry-level paid):
- Significantly higher RPM limits (varies by model)
- Up to 1,000 RPM for some models
- No daily request limits for most models
Tier 2 and Tier 3:
- Tier 2: Unlocked after significant cumulative spending on Google Cloud services
- Tier 3: The highest tier with up to 4,000+ RPM
- Custom limits available for enterprise customers
Paid Tier Pricing Breakdown
Gemini API pricing is based on tokens - the basic units that AI models use to process text. One token roughly equals 4 characters in English text. Pricing differs based on input tokens (what you send to the API) and output tokens (what the API generates).
Gemini 3 Pro Pricing
The newest and most capable model:
- Standard context (up to 200K tokens): $2.00 per million input tokens, $12.00 per million output tokens
- Long context (over 200K tokens): $4.00 per million input tokens, $18.00 per million output tokens
Gemini 3 Pro includes dynamic thinking capabilities, with thinking levels that control reasoning depth. Higher reasoning increases cost but improves output quality for complex tasks.
Gemini 2.5 Pro Pricing
- Standard context (up to 200K tokens): $1.25 per million input tokens, $10.00 per million output tokens
- Long context (over 200K tokens): $2.50 per million input tokens, $15.00 per million output tokens
Gemini 2.5 Flash Pricing
Gemini 2.5 Flash has a thinking budget that introduces different pricing between standard and thinking-enabled output:
- Input tokens: $0.30 per million tokens (text, image, video)
- Standard output: $0.60 per million tokens
- Thinking-enabled output: $3.50 per million tokens
Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite Pricing
The most economical option:
- Input tokens: $0.10 per million tokens
- Output tokens: $0.40 per million tokens
Gemini 2.0 Flash and Flash-Lite Pricing
Previous generation models with simplified pricing:
- Gemini 2.0 Flash maintains similar pricing to 2.5 Flash
- Removes short/long context pricing distinction
