Gemini 4 pricing: Carbon, Argon and Hydrogen
Google's Gemini 4 family has three models, and two of them have a scheduled price increase on December 1, 2026. This page shows today's prices, the announced changes and what a request costs. For all Gemini models see the Gemini API pricing guide; the wider section is AI costs and pricing.
Prices last verified against official provider pages on . How we verify prices. Written by the Chelure Enterprises Editorial Team.
Prices per million tokens
| Model | Input | Output | Cached input (read) | Cache write (5 min) | Batch API | Announced change |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gemini 4 Carbon | $2.00 | $10.00 | $0.10 | - | - | From 2026-12-01: $4.00 in / $20.00 out |
| Gemini 4 Argon | $2.00 | $10.00 | $0.10 | - | - | From 2026-12-01: $4.00 in / $20.00 out |
| Gemini 4 Hydrogen | $1.50 | $7.50 | $0.075 | - | - | - |
| Gemini 3.8 Flash | $0.75 | $3.75 | $0.075 | - | - | From 2027-01-01: $1.50 in / $7.50 out |
Verified November 13, 2026 against the provider's pricing page. Compare every provider in the price comparison, or model your own workload in the cost calculator.
What each model is for
| Model | Positioning (provider) | Context window | Max output |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gemini 4 Carbon | Strongest reasoning model for complex engineering, multimodal work, science and cybersecurity | 1M tokens | 65K / 1M tokens |
| Gemini 4 Argon | Efficient frontier reasoning model, faster with lower token use than Carbon | 1M tokens | 65K / 1M tokens |
| Gemini 4 Hydrogen | Fast, efficient model for everyday coding and agentic workflows | 1M tokens | 65K / 1M tokens |
| Gemini 3.8 Flash | Previous-generation Flash model for software engineering and enterprise agents | Not shown on Google's page | Not shown |
What a request costs
Costs per single request, from the prices above. Prices shown are those in effect on November 13, 2026; two Gemini 4 models double on December 1, 2026. Agent step uses cache reads.
| Model | Chat turn (1,500 input / 400 output tokens, no caching) | RAG answer (8,000 input / 500 output tokens, no caching) | Agent step (30,000 input / 2,000 output tokens, 80% of input read from cache) | 1,000 chat turns |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gemini 4 Carbon | $0.0070 | $0.021 | $0.034 | $7.00 |
| Gemini 4 Argon | $0.0070 | $0.021 | $0.034 | $7.00 |
| Gemini 4 Hydrogen | $0.0053 | $0.016 | $0.026 | $5.25 |
| Gemini 3.8 Flash | $0.0026 | $0.0079 | $0.014 | $2.62 |
Plan for the December 1 change
Gemini 4 Carbon and Argon are listed at $2 input and $10 output per million tokens now and at $4 and $20 from December 1, 2026: a doubling. Our calculators switch to the new price automatically on that date, and the table above shows the announced change next to each model. If you are budgeting past December, use the post-change price. Hydrogen has no announced change in our table.
Gemini 3.8 Flash is shown for comparison: $0.75 and $3.75 today, moving to $1.50 and $7.50 on January 1, 2027, still well under the Gemini 4 prices. Caching is implicit, so there is no code to write, but prompts must be at least 4,096 tokens on these models to be cached; see our prompt caching guide.
Frequently asked questions
How much does Gemini 4 cost?
On the paid tier today, Gemini 4 Carbon and Argon are $2 input and $10 output per million tokens and Gemini 4 Hydrogen is $1.50 and $7.50. Google has announced that Carbon and Argon rise to $4 and $20 from December 1, 2026.
When does the Gemini 4 price change?
December 1, 2026 for Gemini 4 Carbon and Argon, according to the price schedule in our table verified against Google's pricing page. Gemini 3.8 Flash is listed to move from $0.75 and $3.75 to $1.50 and $7.50 from January 1, 2027.
What is the Gemini 4 context window?
Google lists 1M tokens of input context for Carbon, Argon and Hydrogen, with output limits shown as 65K / 1M tokens.
What happens to Gemini 2.5?
Google's model page says gemini-2.5-flash and gemini-2.5-pro route to gemini-3.5-flash-lite and gemini-3.8-flash on December 1, 2026, and lists both as deprecated.
Does Gemini cache prompts?
Yes. Implicit caching is on by default for Gemini 2.5 and newer models, with a minimum of 4,096 tokens on the Gemini 4 models, per Google's caching page.
Sources
Primary sources opened on November 13, 2026. Prices come from our verified price table (see the methodology).