Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite

Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite is a low-latency, lower-cost Gemini model that Google targets at high-throughput work such as sub-agent tasks and document parsing. It became generally available on July 21, 2026 and supports thinking, function calling and multimodal input.

By GoogleReleased July 21, 2026Data checked October 10, 2026

CurrentClosedEfficient

Specifications

Context window: 1Mabout 786,000 words, or 1,570 pages
Max output: 64Ktokens per response
Input price: $0.30per 1M tokens
Output price: $2.50per 1M tokens
Cached input: $0.03per 1M tokens
Weights: ClosedProprietary
Parameters: Undisclosed
Input types: Text, Images, Video, Audio, PDF
Output types: Text
Reasoning mode: Yes
Tool calling: Yes
Released: Jul 21, 2026Current

Paid-tier rates; one input price covers text, image, video and audio. Free tier available. Batch and Flex: $0.15 input, $1.25 output. Cache storage $1.00 per 1M tokens per hour.

What it costs in practice

Workload	Monthly cost at list price
Support chatbot30,000 conversations a month, 2,000 input and 400 output tokens each	$48
Document summaries2,000 documents a month, 12,000 input and 800 output tokens each	$11
Coding agent1,000 tasks a month, 60,000 input and 6,000 output tokens each	$33

Standard rates, no caching or batch discounts. Run your own numbers.

Strengths

$0.30 input and $2.50 output per million tokens across all input types
Accepts text, image, video, audio and PDF input
Free tier on the Gemini API

Trade-offs to weigh

Output costs more than Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite ($2.50 vs $1.50 per million tokens)
65,536-token output limit

Where it fits

Google positions Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite for:

high volumelow latencydata extractionmultimodal

Where you can use it

API
Google Vertex AI
OpenRouter

Alternatives to consider

Model	Tier	Context	Input / output per 1M
SonarPerplexity	Efficient	—	$0.25 / $2.50	Compare
Grok Build 0.1xAI	Efficient	250K	$1 / $2	Compare
Grok 4.3xAI	Efficient	1M	$1.25 / $2.50	Compare
Codestral 25.08Mistral AI	Efficient	125K	$0.30 / $0.90	Compare

Frequently asked questions

How much does Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite cost?

Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite lists at $0.30 per million input tokens and $2.50 per million output tokens, with cached input at $0.03 (checked October 10, 2026). Paid-tier rates; one input price covers text, image, video and audio. Free tier available. Batch and Flex: $0.15 input, $1.25 output. Cache storage $1.00 per 1M tokens per hour. Confirm current rates on the provider's pricing page before you commit.

What is the context window of Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite?

Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite accepts up to 1,048,576 tokens of context (about 786,000 words, or 1,570 pages), and it can write up to 64K tokens in a single response. Long prompts cost more and can be slower, so most apps send only what the task needs.

Is Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite open source?

No. Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite is a proprietary model from Google; its weights aren't published. You can use it through the Google API and through Google Vertex AI, OpenRouter.

What is Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite best for?

Google positions Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite for high volume, low latency, data extraction, multimodal. It accepts text, images, video, audio, pdf as input, has a reasoning (thinking) mode and supports tool calling. Test it on a sample of your own tasks before you choose it for production.

Sources

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