Google's cheapest Gemini 4 model is only 25% cheaper until December

single source· 1 articles · confidence: medium · first seen 2026-11-12 22:55 UTC

What this means for you

Hydrogen's price advantage is arithmetic on a calendar: Carbon and Argon double on 1 December while Hydrogen holds at $1.50, so a workload that is 25% cheaper today is 75% cheaper in three weeks. If you are choosing a cheap model now, that date is the decision, not the launch.

Google released Gemini 4 Hydrogen on 12 November, the cheapest member of its Gemini 4 family, at $1.50 per million input tokens, $0.075 for cached input and $7.50 output. That is only 25% below siblings Carbon and Argon, which cost $2.00/$0.10/$10.00 until 30 November and double to $4.00/$0.20/$20.00 on 1 December — after which Hydrogen's discount becomes 75%. Simon Willison notes that Claude Haiku 5.5 and GPT-6 Luna both sit at $0.10/$0.50, so Hydrogen costs 15 times as much. Carbon and Argon share a price; Google says Argon uses fewer tokens per task.

Models in this story

Key facts

  • ·Gemini 4 Hydrogen launched on 12 November 2026 at $1.50 per million input tokens, $0.075 cached input and $7.50 output. source
  • ·Gemini 4 Carbon and Argon cost $2.00/$0.10/$10.00 through 30 November 2026 and $4.00/$0.20/$20.00 from 1 December 2026. source
  • ·Hydrogen is a 25% discount to its siblings until 30 November and a 75% discount from 1 December. source
  • ·Claude Haiku 5.5 and GPT-6 Luna are both priced at $0.10 input and $0.50 output per million tokens, 15x cheaper than Hydrogen. source
  • ·Google says Argon delivers Gemini 4 intelligence with faster responses and lower token spend per turn than Carbon. source
  • ·llm-gemini 0.37 adds support for the three Gemini 4 models at their three supported effort levels. source

What the sources say

  • Simon Willison — Reproduces Google's full price table and argues the three tiers are hard to tell apart.

Sources

The original reporting. Follow these — they did the work.

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