The honest take
AI baked into Gmail, Docs, and Drive. Best video generation in the field.
Best for: Google ecosystem users, video generation, very long documents (1M tokens)
Where it falls short: Quality lags ChatGPT/Claude on hard reasoning; UI changes constantly
What you actually get
- Writing
- Images
- Video (Veo)
- Workspace
- 1M context
- Deep Research
Pricing history
Feb 2024
Gemini Advanced at $19.99/mo
Q3 2025
Renamed AI Pro / AI Ultra
Jan 2026
AI Plus tier launched at $9.99/mo
Apr 2026
AI Ultra raised to $249.99/mo; 3.1 Pro to AI Pro tier
May 2026
I/O 2026: Gemini 3.5 Flash ($1.50/$9) and Omni Flash video launched
May 2026
I/O 2026: AI Ultra restructured — $99.99 (5×) & $199.99 (20×), down from $249.99
Jun 8, 2026
AI Plus cut to $4.99/mo; storage doubled to 400 GB
Jul 21, 2026
Gemini 3.6 Flash ($1.50/$7.50) & 3.5 Flash-Lite launched; Flash output cut from $9
Should you pay for it?
The free tier of Gemini is good enough for casual use. Pay $4.99 only when you start hitting daily caps or need access to the better models.
API model pricing pages