gemini-2.5-flash-image: Google pages give Oct 2, 2026 and Mar 15, 2027

Google gives two different shutdown dates for gemini-2.5-flash-image on its own pages. The pricing page carries a warning that the model "will be shut down on October 2, 2026", while the deprecations page lists March 15, 2027. Treat October 2 as the date that may already be live, and test your calls today.

The two pages side by side

Google's deprecations page adds a note that a listed shutdown date is the earliest possible date, and that it will give notice of an exact date. The pricing page names two replacements. The deprecations page names one.

Which date to trust

I cannot tell which page is stale, and Google does not say. The safe plan is to assume the earlier date. Run your real prompt against the old id today. If it still answers, you have time, but you have nothing in writing that says so. If it errors, the pricing page was right.

What the move costs

• The old model billed $0.039 per image. Nano Banana 2.1 lists $0.0336 at 1K, so a like-for-like 1K image is cheaper, not dearer.
• Lite is the closer fit on the deprecations page. It also lists $0.0336 at 1K, but it stops at 1K.
• Resolution letters on the new models must be uppercase, such as 1K. Google says lowercase values are rejected.

On Sume

gemini-2.5-flash-image is not in Sume's image model list. If you call Sume, pick an id from GET /v1/images/models instead. The Google-made choices there are google/nano-banana-2.1 and google/nano-banana-pro.