Gemma 3 12B API pricing
Google · Budget price tier · Gemma · released 2025-03. Prices in USD per 1 million tokens. Data snapshot: 2026-11-14.
A support ticket workload of 100K requests a month costs $15.00 on Gemma 3 12B; the next cheaper model in the Budget price tier for this workload, Llama 3.2 1B Instruct, does it for $14.10. Gemma 3 12B has held the same list price since 2026-08-15 and is the 21st cheapest of 159 models in the Budget price tier. None of its 2 hosts undercuts the price we quote. It is rated a stable release but does not meet all four criteria of the FinOps Friendly badge.
- Input: $0.05 per 1M tokens
- Output: $0.15 per 1M tokens
- Batch API (in/out): Not published
- Prompt-cache read: Not published
- Context window: 131K tokens
- Arena ELO: 1334 as of 2026-11-09
Available on
AWS Bedrock regions: ap-northeast-1, eu-west-1, us-east-1, us-east-2, us-west-2
Market position
On blended price ($0.12 per 1M tokens at 30% input, 70% output) it is cheaper than 87% of models in the Budget price tier: 21st cheapest of 159. Across every price tier it is cheaper than 93% of priced text models in the catalogue: 21st cheapest of 304. Its Arena ELO of 1334 ranks 128th of the 160 models that carry one, above 20% of them. With an Arena score of 1334, Gemma 3 12B 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 9 Nov 2026.
Licence, size and capabilities
Gemma 3 12B is open weights, which is not the same as open source: the weights are published, but under Gemma, a licence that restricts some uses. Read it before self-hosting commercially. Its published size is 12B parameters. Listed capabilities: Text, Vision, Agents. Filling its 131K context window once costs $0.00655 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 2 different hosts. 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.
The price we quote is already the cheapest of the 2 hosts: DeepInfra at $0.05 input / $0.15 output per 1M tokens. All of them charge within 10% of one another.
| Host | Input $/1M | Output $/1M | Precision |
|---|---|---|---|
| DeepInfra (price we quote) | $0.05 | $0.15 | bf16 |
| NextBit | $0.075 | $0.15 | int4 |
List prices as published on 2026-11-14, via OpenRouter. Negotiated rates, committed-use discounts and provisioned capacity are not shown. These hosts do not all serve the model at the same numeric precision, so the cheapest is not a like-for-like substitute for the dearest.
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 Google 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 | $15 |
| Knowledge Q&A | 2,000 / 800 | $22 |
| Meeting Summary | 10,000 / 1,200 | $68 |
| Marketing Content | 2,500 / 1,800 | $40 |
| Coding Task | 3,000 / 2,000 | $45 |
| Invoice Processing | 1,500 / 600 | $17 |
| Call Summary | 2,000 / 700 | $21 |
| Agent Workflow | 6,000 / 3,000 | $75 |
Price history
Gemma 3 12B has been in our daily price archive since tracking began on 2026-08-15, when it listed at $0.05 input / $0.15 output per 1M tokens. No list price change since tracking began on 2026-08-15. Last checked against the 2026-11-14 snapshot.
Alternatives to Gemma 3 12B
None of the 4 comparable models below costs less than Gemma 3 12B on the blended price.
- Next cheaper model in the Budget price tier: Phi 4 (Microsoft) at $0.119 blended, 1% less.
- Next more expensive: Hy-MT2-1.8B (Tencent) at $0.1371 blended, 14% more.
The nearest models in the Budget price tier on Arena ELO, each with its blended price and score difference against Gemma 3 12B.
- GLM 4.5V (Zhipu): $0.60 in / $1.80 out per 1M, Arena ELO 1333 (1100% more expensive, 1 ELO point lower)
- DeepSeek V3 (DeepSeek): $0.2574 in / $1.0287 out per 1M, Arena ELO 1333 (564% more expensive, 1 ELO point lower)
- Mistral Small 3.2 24B (Mistral): $0.10 in / $0.30 out per 1M, Arena ELO 1338 (100% more expensive, 4 ELO points higher)
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (Nvidia): $0.07 in / $0.20 out per 1M, Arena ELO 1329 (34% more expensive, 5 ELO points lower)
- Cheapest within 15 Arena points: Gemma 3 12B is itself the cheapest of the 11 models scoring within 15 points of its ELO.
- Highest Arena ELO within 20% of this price: Gemma 3 12B itself has the highest score of the 4 models priced within 20% of it.
Other models from Google
The 8 nearest to Gemma 3 12B in price, of 28 other Google models in the catalogue. Prices per 1M tokens, input then output.
- Gemma 3 4B: $0.05 / $0.10
- Gemma 4 26B A4B: $0.0675 / $0.225
- Gemma 3 27B: $0.08 / $0.35
- Gemini 2.5 Flash Lite: $0.10 / $0.40
- Gemma 4 31B: $0.20 / $0.40
- Gemma 2 27B: $0.65 / $0.65
- Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: $0.25 / $1.50
- Nano Banana 2 Lite (Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Image): $0.25 / $1.50
All 29 Google models and prices
Common questions about Gemma 3 12B pricing
- How much does Gemma 3 12B cost?
- Gemma 3 12B costs $0.05 per 1M input tokens and $0.15 per 1M output tokens at DeepInfra, the host whose rate we quote. Prices as listed on 2026-11-14.
- Which host is cheapest for Gemma 3 12B?
- The price we quote is already the cheapest of the 2 hosts: DeepInfra at $0.05 input / $0.15 output per 1M tokens. All of them charge within 10% of one another. Host rates as listed on 2026-11-14.
- Does Gemma 3 12B offer batch or cached pricing?
- No. Neither a batch rate nor a prompt-cache rate is published for Gemma 3 12B as of 2026-11-14.
- What would Gemma 3 12B cost per month?
- With the Support Ticket profile (1,500 input and 500 output tokens per request), 100,000 requests a month cost about $15 on Gemma 3 12B at the list price quoted on 2026-11-14.
- Can Gemma 3 12B be self-hosted?
- Yes, within the terms of its licence. Gemma 3 12B is open weights, which is not the same as open source: the weights are published, but under Gemma, a licence that restricts some uses. Read it before self-hosting commercially.
- Has the price of Gemma 3 12B changed?
- Gemma 3 12B has been in our daily price archive since tracking began on 2026-08-15, when it listed at $0.05 input / $0.15 output per 1M tokens. No list price change since tracking began on 2026-08-15. Last checked against the 2026-11-14 snapshot.
Its weights are published, which changes what you may run yourself: the cost gap between open weights and proprietary APIs.
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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