Nova 2 Lite API pricing
Amazon · Mid-range price tier · Proprietary · released 2025-12. Prices in USD per 1 million tokens. Data snapshot: 2026-11-12.
A support ticket workload of 100K requests a month costs $170.00 on Nova 2 Lite; the next cheaper model in the Mid-range price tier for this workload, Qwen3.5-27B, does it for $169.00. Nova 2 Lite has held the same list price since 2026-08-15 and is the 16th cheapest of 113 models in the Mid-range price tier. Only one host, Amazon Bedrock, sells it, so there is no second price to shop. It is rated a stable release but does not meet all four criteria of the FinOps Friendly badge.
- Input: $0.30 per 1M tokens
- Output: $2.50 per 1M tokens
- Batch API (in/out): Not published
- Prompt-cache read: Not published
- Context window: 1M tokens
- Arena ELO: 1362 as of 2026-11-08
Available on
AWS Bedrock regions: ap-northeast-1, ap-northeast-3, ap-southeast-1, eu-central-1, eu-north-1, eu-south-1, eu-south-2, eu-west-1, eu-west-3, us-east-1, us-east-2, us-west-2
Market position
On blended price ($1.84 per 1M tokens at 30% input, 70% output) it is cheaper than 83% of models in the Mid-range price tier: 16th cheapest of 113, tied with 4 others. Across every price tier it is cheaper than 41% of priced text models in the catalogue: 176th cheapest of 303, tied with 4 others. Its Arena ELO of 1362 ranks 119th of the 160 models that carry one, above 26% of them. With an Arena score of 1362, Nova 2 Lite sits below OptimNow's lowest working quality threshold, Standard (Arena 1420+), so the quality-bar method would not shortlist it for any of the 8 use cases the table prices. Each threshold is a distance below the best ranked model, which scores 1530 on Arena scores as of 8 Nov 2026.
Licence, size and capabilities
Nova 2 Lite is recorded here as proprietary: access is through an API, priced by the token. Its parameter count is not published. Listed capabilities: Text, Vision, Reasoning, Agents. Filling its 1M context window once costs $0.30 in input tokens at list price.
Pricing by host
A host is a company that runs the model and sells it by the token: the model maker, a cloud platform like Amazon Bedrock, Azure or Vertex, or an independent host. One model, several hosts, and often several prices. This model is sold by 1 host. The price we quote elsewhere on this page is marked. We quote one host's rate so that models stay comparable; it is not a recommendation to buy there.
Amazon Bedrock is the only host with a published rate, $0.30 input / $2.50 output per 1M tokens, which is the price we quote.
| Host | Input $/1M | Output $/1M |
|---|---|---|
| Amazon Bedrock (model maker, price we quote) | $0.30 | $2.50 |
List prices as published on 2026-11-12, via OpenRouter. Negotiated rates, committed-use discounts and provisioned capacity are not shown.
Monthly cost at 100K requests, by business use case
From the after-discounts figure (prompt caching on the cached input share, batch API for async workloads, only where Amazon publishes those rates), which assumes you implement both, to the list price. One figure means no discount is published.
| Use case | Tokens (in/out) | Monthly (after discounts – list) |
|---|---|---|
| Support Ticket | 1,500 / 500 | $170 |
| Knowledge Q&A | 2,000 / 800 | $260 |
| Meeting Summary | 10,000 / 1,200 | $600 |
| Marketing Content | 2,500 / 1,800 | $525 |
| Coding Task | 3,000 / 2,000 | $590 |
| Invoice Processing | 1,500 / 600 | $195 |
| Call Summary | 2,000 / 700 | $235 |
| Agent Workflow | 6,000 / 3,000 | $930 |
Price history
Nova 2 Lite has been in our daily price archive since tracking began on 2026-08-15, when it listed at $0.30 input / $2.50 output per 1M tokens. No list price change since tracking began on 2026-08-15. Last checked against the 2026-11-12 snapshot.
Alternatives to Nova 2 Lite
3 of the 4 comparable models below cost less than Nova 2 Lite: GPT-5 Mini undercuts it by 20%, and scores 12 Arena points higher.
- Next cheaper model in the Mid-range price tier: Kimi K2 0711 (Moonshot) at $1.781 blended, 3% less.
- Next more expensive: Nemotron 3 Ultra (Nvidia) at $1.86 blended, 1% more.
The nearest models in the Mid-range price tier on Arena ELO, each with its blended price and score difference against Nova 2 Lite.
- Mistral Medium 3 (Mistral): $0.40 in / $2.00 out per 1M, Arena ELO 1370 (17% cheaper, 8 ELO points higher)
- Kimi K2 0711 (Moonshot): $0.57 in / $2.30 out per 1M, Arena ELO 1371 (3% cheaper, 9 ELO points higher)
- GPT-5 Mini (OpenAI): $0.25 in / $2.00 out per 1M, Arena ELO 1374 (20% cheaper, 12 ELO points higher)
- Kimi K2 0905 (Moonshot): $0.60 in / $2.50 out per 1M, Arena ELO 1380 (5% more expensive, 18 ELO points higher)
- Cheapest within 15 Arena points: Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B (Nvidia), 90% cheaper, 14 ELO points lower, out of 14 models in that band.
- Highest Arena ELO within 20% of this price: DeepSeek V4 Pro 0423 (DeepSeek), 12% cheaper, 89 ELO points higher, out of 22 models in that price band.
Other models from Amazon
Amazon has 4 other models in the catalogue. Prices per 1M tokens, input then output.
- Nova Micro 1.0: $0.035 / $0.14
- Nova Lite 1.0: $0.06 / $0.24
- Nova Pro 1.0: $0.80 / $3.20
- Nova Premier 1.0: $2.50 / $12.50
All 5 Amazon models and prices
Common questions about Nova 2 Lite pricing
- How much does Nova 2 Lite cost?
- Nova 2 Lite costs $0.30 per 1M input tokens and $2.50 per 1M output tokens. That is the model maker's own rate (Amazon Bedrock). Prices as listed on 2026-11-12.
- Which host is cheapest for Nova 2 Lite?
- Amazon Bedrock is the only host with a published rate, $0.30 input / $2.50 output per 1M tokens, which is the price we quote. Host rates as listed on 2026-11-12.
- Does Nova 2 Lite offer batch or cached pricing?
- No. Neither a batch rate nor a prompt-cache rate is published for Nova 2 Lite as of 2026-11-12.
- What would Nova 2 Lite cost per month?
- With the Support Ticket profile (1,500 input and 500 output tokens per request), 100,000 requests a month cost about $170 on Nova 2 Lite at the list price quoted on 2026-11-12.
- Can Nova 2 Lite be self-hosted?
- No, as far as this site records. Nova 2 Lite is recorded here as proprietary: access is through an API, priced by the token.
- Has the price of Nova 2 Lite changed?
- Nova 2 Lite has been in our daily price archive since tracking began on 2026-08-15, when it listed at $0.30 input / $2.50 output per 1M tokens. No list price change since tracking began on 2026-08-15. Last checked against the 2026-11-12 snapshot.
It exposes a thinking budget, so its output volume is what the bill turns on: what thinking models charge for output.
These are list prices. Your real cost also depends on caching and batching, negotiated discounts, marketplace agreements, and the contracts you already have. OptimNow audits exactly that.
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