Google AI Studio Adds Spend Caps and Revamped Usage Tiers

Google

Mar 18, 2026 · Updated Apr 25, 2026

Google AI Studio adds Project Spend Caps for per-project monthly budget limits on Gemini API costs, revamped Usage Tiers that auto-upgrade as spending and payment history grow, and new rate limit, cost, and usage dashboards.

Google AI Studio rolls out three cost management features for the Gemini API. Project Spend Caps let you set a monthly dollar limit per project — the cap stays active until you modify or disable it, with a ~10-minute enforcement delay. This is particularly useful for accounts running multiple projects that need granular billing control.

The revamped Usage Tiers now auto-upgrade you to higher rate limits as your spending and payment history grow. Tier qualification thresholds are lower, and each tier carries a system-defined billing account cap that increases as you graduate upward. Google also added dashboards for rate limits (RPM, TPM, RPD), daily cost breakdowns filterable by model, and expanded usage metrics — all directly inside AI Studio.

Set a spend cap on each of your active Gemini API projects and use the new cost dashboard to track daily spend by model directly within AI Studio.

View the full update on blog.google

Google AI Developers

@googleaidevsMar 16

Get more transparency and control over your Gemini API costs with new features in @GoogleAIStudio! - Set granular monthly budgets for every project with Project Spend Caps - Experience automatic upgrades and get faster access to higher rate limits with revamped Usage Tiers - Enjoy enhanced observability, control, and improved billing flow directly within AI Studio Set your cap, start building: https://t.co/H8TEC3I3bE

View on X

Every HeadsUpAI update is written based on its original source and reviewed before it's published. Read our editorial standards →

See all AI news & updates from Google →

Keep reading

Gemini API Adds Per-Project Monthly Spend Caps in AI Studio

Google launched Project Spend Caps for the Gemini API, letting developers set a monthly dollar limit per project in AI Studio. Caps have up to a 10-minute activation delay, and Google revamped usage tiers to auto-upgrade developers as usage scales.

GoogleApr 2

Google Launches Flex and Priority Tiers to Balance Agentic Workload Costs

Google introduced Flex and Priority inference tiers to the Gemini API, allowing developers to choose between 50% cost savings or maximum reliability. This shift enables teams to optimize expensive thinking tokens for background agents while ensuring user-facing interactions remain instant and dependable.

Google Restructures AI Tiers With New 100 Dollar Ultra Plan

GeminiMay 19

Google Restructures AI Tiers With New 100 Dollar Ultra Plan

Google reduced the price of its top-tier AI Ultra plan to $200 per month and introduced a new $100 mid-tier option to support high-compute agentic workflows. These plans provide significantly higher usage limits for coding and personal agents compared to the standard Pro subscription.

OpenRouter Adds Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite With 1M Context and Service Tiers

OpenRouterMay 7

OpenRouter Adds Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite With 1M Context and Service Tiers

OpenRouter integrated Google's Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite into its unified API, offering a 1 million token context window and multimodal processing for $0.25 per million input tokens. The update introduces a service tier parameter that allows developers to trade off latency for lower costs on high-volume agentic tasks.