Developers making images in high volume get Google's cheapest Nano Banana option, with no free API tier.

Kenning's take

What it does

Nano Banana 2 Lite, or Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Image, is the speed-focused member of Google's Nano Banana image family, built for high volumes and quick drafts. Google says it returns a text-to-image result in about four seconds and recommends it as the replacement for the original Nano Banana (Gemini 2.5 Flash Image). It is available in Google AI Studio, the Gemini API and Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform, and is coming to the Gemini app, AI Mode in Search, NotebookLM, Google Photos and Flow.

• Text-to-image in about four seconds
• Lowest-cost Nano Banana model
• Image generation and editing
• Replacement for gemini-2.5-flash-image
• Batch mode at half price

Who it suits. Developers running high-volume image pipelines, and people who want quick image drafts in Google apps.

Key facts

Category

AI models

Part of

Google Gemini

Made by

Google DeepMind

Released

30 June 2026

How to get it

through Google AI Studio, the Gemini API (gemini-3.1-flash-lite-image) and Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform; rolling out in the Gemini app, AI Mode in Search and other Google apps

Works on

API, Web, iOS, Android

In the UK

Yes

Free plan

no free tier in the Gemini API

API price

$0.25 per million input tokens, $30 per million image output tokens (about $0.0336 per 1K image); Batch about $0.0168

FAQ

Facts from the maker's own pages and the sources listed. Checked 2026-10-11.