Gemini 3 Flash Preview API Pricing
Google · context window 1M · prices updated 2026-09-15
Where Gemini 3 Flash Preview sits on price
At $3.00 per million output tokens, Gemini 3 Flash Preview is a mid tier model — 1.4× the median output price of $2.08, which puts it cheaper than 41% and pricier than 59% of the models we track. It sits 25th cheapest of the 38 Google models we track. Output costs 6.0× more than input here, so anything that makes the model write less — tighter instructions, structured output, lower max_tokens — moves the bill more than trimming the prompt.
Cached input is 90% cheaper. On an input-heavy workload you need roughly a 28% cache-hit rate to take 25% off the input line — reachable for chatbots and agents that resend the same system prompt and history.
What real workloads cost on Gemini 3 Flash Preview
These three workloads are the ones teams actually run on a mid-priced model — a $3.00/1M model is not bought for the same job as one ten times the price.
| Workload | Per request | Per month |
|---|---|---|
| Support chatbot — 500 conversations/day (5K in / 1.4K out) Conversation history re-sent each turn — the classic prompt-caching win. | $0.0067 | $100 |
| Document pipeline — 10K docs/day (3K in / 500 out) Batch-friendly: no user waiting, so a ~50% batch discount usually applies. | $0.003 | $900 |
| Long-context analysis — 200 runs/day (250K in / 4K out) Only possible on large-context models; input cost is nearly the whole bill. | $0.137 | $822 |
Model your exact traffic in the API cost calculator — it preloads Gemini 3 Flash Preview with caching and batch options.
Gemini 3 Flash Preview price history
Gemini 3 Flash Preview's price has not moved since we began tracking it on Aug 2, 2026 — 44 days of stability in a market where 78 of the 334 models we track have repriced over the same period, including 6 of Google's own 38 models.
Change-points from our daily price snapshots (tracking since Aug 2, 2026; intraday moves between snapshots are not captured).
Gemini 3 Flash Preview vs GLM 5.1
The closest-priced alternative from another vendor is GLM 5.1 (Z.ai (GLM)) — priced within a rounding error on output, with $0.466 more per million input tokens. When two models land this close on price, the decision is quality on your own workload, not the price sheet: run 50 real requests through both and compare.
See GLM 5.1 pricing →Cheaper alternatives
More Google models
Frequently asked questions
› How much does the Gemini 3 Flash Preview API cost?
Gemini 3 Flash Preview costs $0.5 per million input tokens and $3.00 per million output tokens, with cached input at $0.05 per million (90% cheaper). That works out to roughly 333,333 output tokens per dollar.
› What does the support chatbot workload cost on Gemini 3 Flash Preview?
Support chatbot — 500 conversations/day (5K in / 1.4K out) costs about $0.0067 per request and $100 per month on Gemini 3 Flash Preview. Conversation history re-sent each turn — the classic prompt-caching win.
› What does it cost to fill Gemini 3 Flash Preview's 1M context window?
Sending 1M of input in a single request costs $0.5243 at $0.5 per million tokens — before any output. With prompt caching that same fill drops to about $0.0524 on repeat requests. This is why large context windows are cheap to advertise and expensive to actually use.
› Is Gemini 3 Flash Preview worth the price?
Gemini 3 Flash Preview sits in the middle of the market (25 of 38 by price within Google). The honest test is a routing experiment: send the same 200 real requests to this model and to a tier below, and compare failure rate against the price gap — most teams find a majority of traffic never needed the pricier model.