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Google's Gemini API price list doubles every paid token price for Gemini 3.6, 3.7 and 3.8 Flash on January 1, 2027, taking standard input from $0.75 to $1.50 per million tokens and output from $3.75 to $7.50; for 3.6 Flash that is a return to the price it launched at in July, and Google's changelog names neither price.

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Google's Gemini API pricing page lists two prices for every paid token rate on Gemini 3.6 Flash, 3.7 Flash and 3.8 Flash: one 'through December 31, 2026' and one 'starting January 1, 2027'. The second is double the first. Standard input goes from $0.75 to $1.50 per million tokens and output, including thinking tokens, from $3.75 to $7.50; Batch, Flex, Priority and context caching step the same way. The 3.8 Flash TTS and 3.8 Flash-Lite TTS speech models, released September 22, double on the same day, as do two Gemini Robotics ER 2 preview endpoints. The free tier stays free. Google's changelog calls the 3.7 Flash rate an introductory price but names no figure, and no changelog entry for the other models mentions a step. Internet Archive captures from July 22 and August 12 list 3.6 Flash at $1.50 and $7.50 with no end date; by August 13 the page had halved it through December 31, so January returns it to its launch price. Because Gemini API spend caps and prepaid balances are set in dollars, a workload on these models that does not change will reach them twice as fast from January 1.

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If you pay Google to run Gemini 3.6 Flash, 3.7 Flash or 3.8 Flash through its developer API, your per-token prices double on New Year's Day. Google's price list says so. Its release notes do not.

The pricing page lists each paid token rate for those three models twice. The standard input line for all three reads:

$0.75 through December 31, 2026. $1.50 starting January 1, 2027.

The price was on a different page

Google's changelog entry of August 13 says Gemini 3.7 Flash is "available at an introductory price through December 31, 2026." It gives no figure, and Hugin's September 13 record noted that gap. The pricing page already had the figures: an Internet Archive capture from August 13 carries the $0.75 and $1.50 lines for 3.7 Flash and 3.6 Flash.

For 3.6 Flash, the January price is not new. The July 21 changelog entry says it launched "at a lower price point than 3.5 Flash". Archive captures from July 22 and August 12 list it at $1.50 input and $7.50 output, with no end date, against 3.5 Flash's $1.50 and $9.00. By the August 13 capture, the day 3.7 Flash arrived, the page had halved 3.6 Flash to $0.75 and $3.75 through December 31 and put $1.50 and $7.50 back from January 1. No changelog entry mentions that cut.

The two robotics preview endpoints went the same way: $2.00 and $10.00 in a July 31 capture, the day after their launch, and still on September 3, then halved through December 31 by September 22. 3.7 and 3.8 Flash had the step from their first captures. And since September 18 the changelog has told new projects to use 3.5 Flash-Lite or 3.8 Flash. The second one doubles.

The numbers

Paid tier, standard rates unless noted, US dollars per million tokens:

Model and rate Through Dec 31, 2026 From Jan 1, 2027
3.6, 3.7 and 3.8 Flash, input $0.75 $1.50
Same, output (including thinking tokens) $3.75 $7.50
Same, Batch or Flex, input / output $0.375 / $1.875 $0.75 / $3.75
Same, Priority, input / output $1.35 / $6.75 $2.70 / $13.50
3.8 Flash TTS, audio output $9.00 $18.00
3.8 Flash-Lite TTS, audio output $6.00 $12.00

Context caching and cache storage double too. Google converts the 3.8 Flash TTS rate to $0.00225 per 10 seconds of audio: about $0.81 per hour of speech now, $1.62 from January. The free tier stays free of charge.

Why a doubled rate can stop an app

Google's billing page caps monthly Gemini API spending by account tier, except on invoiced accounts: $250 for Tier 1, $2,000 for Tier 2. At the cap, "service is paused for all projects linked to that billing account until the start of the next billing cycle". On prepaid billing, at a $0 balance, "all API keys in all projects linked to that billing account will stop working simultaneously." A Tier 1 account spending $150 a month on these models today would see the same traffic cost $300 in January, past its $250 cap.

Before January 1

  • Budget January at twice your current spend on these models.
  • Check your tier cap (Google takes requests to raise it), any project spend cap in AI Studio, your prepaid balance and your auto-reload limit.
  • Price any new model choice at the 2027 rate. Batch and Flex input and output stay at half the standard rate on both schedules.

What the record does not say

  • Whether Google will announce it. The pricing page states no notice. This desk did not read Google's API terms, so it cannot say what notice they require.
  • Whether the dates hold. The page was last edited September 24 and can change.
  • Why Google cut, and when exactly. The page gives no reason for halving 3.6 Flash in August or the robotics endpoints in September. Archive captures date each change only to the gap between two captures.
  • Enterprise prices. Volume-discounted enterprise pricing through Google Cloud's Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform was not read.

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