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Google Gemini API and Vertex AI licensing

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This article is about licensing Google's Gemini models for developers and enterprises: the Gemini Developer API, Gemini on Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform (formerly Vertex AI), the Gemini Enterprise app and Gemini Code Assist. It does not cover Google Workspace or Gemini add-ons for Workspace.

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Google Gemini models reach developers and enterprises through several commercial routes, each licensed differently. The Gemini Developer API (with Google AI Studio) is metered per 1 million input and output tokens, with a Free tier and a Paid tier.[1] Gemini on Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform, the new name for the Vertex AI Platform, is also metered per token, and adds Provisioned Throughput bought in generative AI scale units.[5][6] The Gemini Enterprise app and Gemini Code Assist are sold per seat per month.[9][12] Whether usage is free or paid also decides whether Google may use prompts to improve its products.[2] Prices below are as published on 2026-09-26 and change often.

Plans

Route Commercial model Flagship published price 
Gemini API Free Tier Free, rate-limited, limited models Free of charge on models that offer it[1] 
Gemini API Paid Tier Prepaid credits, then pay-as-you-go, per 1M tokens Gemini 3.8 Flash: $0.75 input / $3.75 output through 2026-12-31; $1.50 / $7.50 from 2027-01-01[1] 
Agent Platform on-demand Pay-as-you-go per 1M tokens Same introductory Gemini 3.8, 3.7 and 3.6 Flash prices[6] 
Agent Platform Provisioned Throughput Commitment in GSUs (1 week to 1 year) Priced per GSU by term and endpoint[6] 
Gemini Enterprise Business Per seat per month, up to 300 seats Starting at $21 USD[9] 
Gemini Enterprise Standard / Plus Per seat per month, unlimited seats Starting at $30 USD[9] 
Gemini Enterprise Pay-as-you-go $0 seat fee, usage-based, 20+ seats Standard pay-as-you-go resource rates[9] 
Gemini Code Assist Standard / Enterprise Per license, monthly or 12-month commitment Standard: $0.031232877 per hour (monthly) or $0.026027397 per hour (12-month), as displayed[12] 

On the Gemini API, a Pro-class model such as Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview has no free tier and is priced at $2.00 input / $12.00 output per 1M tokens for prompts up to 200k tokens, and $4.00 / $18.00 above that.[1] The Gemini API pricing page also lists an Enterprise option, “powered by Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform”, with Provisioned Throughput and volume-based discounts.[1]

Metrics

Counting and metering

Gemini API

The Gemini API counts as a Paid Service only when accessed through a Cloud project linked to an active billing account.[2] To reach the Paid tier, a customer links a billing account and prepays at least $5 of credits, and the API serves requests only while the Prepay balance is positive.[3] Paid accounts move through usage tiers with billing caps: Tier 1 at $250, Tier 2 at $2,000 after $100 spent and 3 days, and Tier 3 at $20,000 to $100,000+ after $1,000 and 30 days. Tiers, rate limits and caps are set at the billing account level.[3] Rate limits are measured in requests per minute, tokens per minute and requests per day, and apply per project rather than per API key.[4]

Agent Platform

Agent Platform charges only for requests that return a 200 response code; 4xx and 5xx responses are not charged.[6] Provisioned Throughput is sized by converting queries per second into burndown-adjusted tokens per second and dividing by per-GSU throughput. The result is rounded up to the model’s minimum purchase increment, so the worked example buys 17 GSUs for a need of 16.96.[6] Flexible Savings Plans provide spend-based committed use discounts across eligible Google Cloud products.[6]

Gemini Enterprise

A user must have a license to sign in to the Gemini Enterprise app. Licenses are bought as a subscription, distributed to projects and locations, and assigned to users manually or automatically on first access. They are specific to a Google Cloud project and a location.[10] Overages are available only for Standard, Plus and Standard Emerging Market editions with an invoiced Cloud Billing account. Storage and data indexing above the pooled quota always incurs overage charges.[11]

Prerequisites

The Gemini API and Google AI Studio are for developers building for professional or business purposes, not for consumer use, and users must be 18 or older.[2] Only Paid Services may be used when making API clients available to users in the European Economic Area, Switzerland or the United Kingdom.[2] Gemini Enterprise overages require an invoiced Cloud Billing account and at least one active, non-free-trial subscription.[11]

Data use

The Gemini API terms split data use by payment status:

  • Unpaid Services (Google AI Studio and unpaid Gemini API quota): Google uses submitted content and generated responses to provide, improve and develop its products and machine learning technologies, and human reviewers may read inputs and outputs.[2]
  • Paid Services: Google does not use prompts, cached content, files or responses to improve its products. It logs them for a limited period only to detect Prohibited Use Policy violations.[2]
  • EEA, Switzerland and UK: the Paid Services data terms apply to all Services, including free ones.[2]

On Google Cloud, the Service Specific Terms state that Google “will not use Customer Data to train or fine-tune any AI/ML models without Customer’s prior permission or instruction.”[7] Agent Platform documentation applies this to all managed models, GA and pre-GA, and lists the steps customers must take to reach zero data retention.[8]

Programs

  • Gemini API Free Tier and Paid Tier. The Paid tier is normally Prepay; some accounts are offered Postpay, or assigned it until the Prepay system, starting 2026-03-23, reaches all users.[1][3]
  • Agent Platform on-demand, with Standard, Priority and Flex/Batch options and Global or non-Global endpoints.[6]
  • Provisioned Throughput commitments of 1 week, 1 month, 3 months or 1 year. A promotional 50% billing credit on Gemini 3.8, 3.7 and 3.6 Flash Provisioned Throughput runs from 2026-08-13 to 2026-12-31.[6]
  • Gemini Enterprise editions: Business, Standard, Plus, Pay-as-you-go and Frontline. Standard, Plus and Frontline are bought through Google Cloud sales.[9]
  • Gemini Code Assist Standard and Enterprise: yearly or monthly commitment, billed monthly.[12]

For how prepaid credits and committed capacity behave in general, see subscription and consumption licensing. Per-seat Gemini Enterprise follows the named user pattern.

Out of scope

  • Google Workspace plans and Gemini add-ons for Workspace (covered separately under Google Workspace licensing).
  • Consumer Google AI plans (Google AI Pro, Ultra and similar).
  • Third-party and open models on Agent Platform Model Garden (Claude, Llama, Gemma and others), Imagen, Veo, Lyria and text-to-speech prices.
  • Full per-model price tables, Provisioned Throughput per-GSU throughput tables and Gemini Enterprise overage rates: see the vendor pages.[1][6][11]
  • Gemini Code Assist Enterprise and monthly-view prices, which were not captured as static text.

Catalog rows

New catalog rows for this article, grouped by table.

References

  1. Gemini Developer API pricing (Google AI for Developers)Free, Paid, Enterprise tiers; per-model token prices.Effective 2026-09-24. Retrieved 2026-09-26.
  2. Gemini API Additional Terms of ServiceUnpaid and Paid Services; data use; EEA, Switzerland, UK.Effective 2026-03-23. Retrieved 2026-09-26.
  3. Gemini API Billing (Google AI for Developers)Usage tiers, caps, Prepay and Postpay.Effective 2026-09-20. Retrieved 2026-09-26.
  4. Gemini API Rate limits (Google AI for Developers)Effective 2026-09-02. Retrieved 2026-09-26.
  5. Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform name changes (Google Cloud Documentation)Effective 2026-09-25. Retrieved 2026-09-26.
  6. Agent Platform Pricing, Generative AI (Google Cloud)Token prices, 200-only charging, Provisioned Throughput, Flexible Savings Plans. Undated page.Retrieved 2026-09-26.
  7. Google Cloud Platform Service Specific Terms, Section 18 Training RestrictionLast modified September 24, 2026.Effective 2026-09-24. Retrieved 2026-09-26.
  8. Zero data retention, Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform (Google Cloud Documentation)Effective 2026-09-25. Retrieved 2026-09-26.
  9. Gemini Enterprise app, editions (Google Cloud)Edition starting prices and seat limits.Retrieved 2026-09-26.
  10. Get subscriptions and assign licenses for Gemini Enterprise (Google Cloud Documentation)Effective 2026-09-24. Retrieved 2026-09-26.
  11. Quotas and overages, Gemini Enterprise (Google Cloud Documentation)Effective 2026-09-24. Retrieved 2026-09-26.
  12. Gemini for Google Cloud pricing (Google Cloud)Gemini Code Assist Standard and Enterprise.Retrieved 2026-09-26.

See also

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