Simon Willison
@simonw
My notes on Gemini 3.5 Flash - 3x the price of Gemini 3 Flash but Google are planning to use it for many of their own products https://t.co/05OXjANCUu
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View on XSimon Willison Analyzes Gemini 3.5 Flash and Finds a Threefold Price Increase
Simon Willison· Updated
Google released Gemini 3.5 Flash at Google I/O 2026, moving the model directly to general availability for developers and consumer products. Independent analysis reveals a threefold price increase over the previous generation, signaling a shift toward higher inference costs for frontier-level speed.
Simon Willison, creator of Datasette, analyzed Gemini 3.5 Flash and found the model carries a significant price premium. While it maintains the 1-million-token context window, it is priced at 3x the cost of Gemini 3 Flash and 6x the cost of Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite.
Willison notes this pricing shift mirrors trends from OpenAI and Anthropic, where newer models launch at higher price points. Google is already deploying the model to power a unified AI Search experience and the Antigravity agent platform, suggesting performance gains justify the higher operational spend.
Willison's findings highlight a beta Interactions API for history management, but the model excludes computer use capabilities. Independent benchmarks show that running complex tasks on gemini-3.5-flash can exceed the cost of the more capable Gemini 3.1 Pro, challenging its position as a budget-friendly option.
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