Google AI Studio / Gemini API
LLM / image / TTSCheapGemini text, Imagen images and Gemini TTS with a generous free tier.
What it is
Google AI Studio is the console and key-issuing front door to the Gemini API — multimodal text/vision/audio models with long context, Imagen image generation, native Gemini image editing (Nano Banana), Gemini TTS and Veo video. It offers a real free tier for prototyping plus pay-as-you-go, undercutting most rivals at the low end.
What it can do
- Gemini Pro / Flash / Flash-Lite, up to 1M-token context
- Large free tier (rate-limited) in AI Studio
- Imagen 4 image generation (Fast / Standard / Ultra)
- Native Gemini image gen and edit-by-prompt (Nano Banana)
- Gemini TTS with multi-voice control
- Veo video generation
- Function calling, structured output, Google Search grounding
- Batch mode ~50% off; context caching
Pricing
Free tier
Yes — generous free tier with rate limits (free-tier data may improve products)
Paid from
pay-as-you-go, from ~$0.10 / 1M tokens
Similar services
| Service | How it differs |
|---|---|
| Google AI Studio / Gemini APIpay-as-you-go, from ~$0.10 / 1M tokens | Gemini text, Imagen images and Gemini TTS with a generous free tier. |
| OpenAI API | Stronger ecosystem and realtime voice; pricier at the low end. |
| Anthropic Claude | Better long-context reasoning and coding; no native image/TTS. |
| fal.ai | Per-second open gen-media models if you want non-Google media. |