Understand pricing

Click your Gemini API provider to view provider-specific content and code on this page. Gemini Developer API Vertex AI Gemini API

Using Firebase AI Logic is free-of-charge. However, the costs for your Gemini API usage and whether your Firebase project needs to be on the pay-as-you-go Blaze pricing plan depends on your chosen Gemini API provider and the features of Firebase AI Logic that you use.

For the Gemini Developer API:

• Pricing is largely based on the model and features that you use.

• Using some models (especially preview models and image-generating models) might require billing.

This page provides a high-level overview of pricing and billing account requirements. For more details, see the Gemini Developer API pricing documentation and billing FAQ.

Tip: If you're new to Firebase and Google Cloud, check if you're eligible for $300 of credit and a Free Trial Cloud Billing account.
Note that this credit cannot be used towards Gemini Developer API costs, but the credit can be used for the Vertex AI Gemini API and most other paid Firebase and Google Cloud services that you'd use for your app.

Billing account requirements

The Gemini Developer API offers different tiers for its pricing. The following sections provide a high-level overview of these tiers, but review their details in the Gemini Developer API pricing documentation.

Gemini Developer API "free tier"

The Gemini Developer API "free tier" lets you get started without having to provide a payment method. It gives you limited access to certain models and access to many basic features.

To use this "free tier", you do not link your project to a Cloud Billing account. This means your Firebase project is on the no-cost Spark pricing plan.

Gemini Developer API "paid tiers"

The Gemini Developer API "paid tiers" are available when you require higher volumes or want access to more models or advanced features.

To use these "paid tiers", you must link your project to a Cloud Billing account. This means your Firebase project is upgraded to the pay-as-you-go Blaze pricing plan.

Here are some important key points about the Gemini Developer API and linking a Cloud Billing account:

• In addition to linking a Cloud Billing account, the Gemini Developer API requires most projects to provide a prepayment to start using paid services (especially for projects with a new Cloud Billing account). To learn if your project has additional billing setup requirements, "import" your Firebase project into Google AI Studio (find the button in the top-right of the Projects page).
• As part of linking a Cloud Billing account, we strongly recommend that you set Gemini Developer API spending caps. Note that these spending caps do not apply to paid Firebase and Google Cloud services (like Cloud Firestore).
• After billing is successfully set up for the "paid tiers", then all usage of the Gemini Developer API is pay-as-you-go pricing (including any usage through the Firebase AI Logic SDKs). Note that all Firebase and Google Cloud services (like Cloud Firestore) continue to offer their own specific no-cost usage levels.

Learn more about billing setup and payments in the Gemini Developer API billing documentation.

Other considerations for costs

If you're on the Blaze pricing plan, you might incur costs when you use other products in conjunction with Firebase AI Logic:

• Other Firebase products may incur costs. For details, see the Firebase pricing page.

  • Using some of the attestation providers supported by Firebase App Check.

  • Using Firebase Authentication beyond the no-cost usage levels.

  • Using any of Firebase's database products beyond their no-cost usage levels.

• AI monitoring in the Firebase console may incur costs.
  While AI monitoring in the Firebase console is free-of-charge itself, you may incur costs if you go beyond the no-cost usage levels of the underlying Google Cloud Observability Suite products. Learn more in the Google Cloud Observability Suite pricing documentation.

Recommendations to manage costs

When your project is on the Blaze pricing plan, set up budget alerts using the console.

Be aware that budget alerts do not cap your usage or charges — they are alerts about your costs so that you can take action, if needed. For example, you might consider using budget notifications to programmatically disable Cloud Billing on a project.

We recommend doing the following to help manage your costs:

• Avoid surprise bills by monitoring your costs and usage and setting up budget alerts.

• When using Gemini models (except Live API models), get an estimate of the token size of your requests using the countTokens API before sending your requests and accessing the usageMetadata attribute in your responses.

• Set the thinking budget (for Gemini 3 models and Gemini 2.5 models only) and the maxOutputTokens (all Gemini models) in the model's configuration.

• Enable AI monitoring to view dashboards in the Firebase console with information about your requests, including token counts.