Nano Banana 2.1 fal price fell to $0.040; Sume still bills $0.10

No, Sume's Nano Banana 2.1 price did not fall with the vendor's: the catalog I read on origin/main bills $0.10 per 1K image, while the fal model card read $0.040 per 1K image on 2026-10-10. The gap is about 2.5x at 1K and 2K and about 1.5x at 4K, so a team that budgets from the vendor card will under-estimate its Sume bill.

This post lays out the three price lines side by side and shows how to budget from the number Sume actually charges, which is the pricing line on the model's endpoints route. It describes the catalog as of 2026-10-10; a later catalog update can change every number below.

What each page said on 2026-10-10

Google's Gemini Developer API pricing page listed gemini-nano-banana-2.1 at $0.0336 for a 1K image, $0.0504 at 2K and $0.113 at 4K on the standard tier. The fal model card listed text-to-image at $0.040 (1K), $0.059 (2K) and $0.134 (4K), and said billing follows the tokens each request actually uses, so those are examples rather than flat fees.

Sume's own table comes from the pricing code and the Image API docs: the endpoint price is the provider list price times 1.25 (the docs say endpoint pricing lines already include the Sume margin). The code stores a $0.08 list rate for 1K, with a comment that records the fal card at $0.08 on 2026-10-06. The fal card has moved since.

The gap in plain numbers

Take 1,000 images at 1K. Google's standard tier is $33.60 at the listed rate, the fal card is $40.00, and Sume bills $100.00. At 4K, the same 1,000 images are $113.00 at Google, $134.00 on the fal card and $200.00 on Sume. The Sume-to-fal ratio is 100 / 40 = 2.5 at 1K, 150 / 59 = about 2.54 at 2K, and 200 / 134 = about 1.49 at 4K.

I am not claiming a reason for the difference. A Sume bill covers hosting the result at a Sume URL, the job record and the wallet metering described in the docs, What the data does show is that the list basis in the Sume code was last aligned to the fal card from 2026-10-06, so a price cut after that date has not reached the catalog.

What to budget from

Do not copy a vendor card into a spreadsheet. Read the endpoints route for the model you will send, multiply cost_usd by n, and that is the wallet charge, because the docs state that you pay cost_usd × n.

For Nano Banana 2.1 the catalog route reports one output_image line, which is the 1K price; the 0.5K, 2K and 4K tiers are scaled when a request is admitted. If you pin resolution: "4K" for a batch, budget the 4K figure above, not the route's headline number.

• Check GET /v1/images/models/google/nano-banana-2.1/endpoints on the day you plan the batch.
• Keep a per-tier table in your repo and re-read it at the start of each month.
• If cost per image matters more than a 2.5x premium buys you, test Seedream 5.0 Lite at $0.04375 or FLUX.2 Pro at $0.0375 on the same prompt.

Does the premium buy anything?

A Sume image job returns a Sume-hosted URL, the standard job envelope when a slow render passes 30 seconds, and the all-or-nothing billing rule: failed or cancelled generations are not charged. Those are properties of the platform, not of the model. If you only need raw Nano Banana 2.1 output at the lowest price and already run a Google or fal account, the vendor route is cheaper on paper today.

If you want one wallet, one API shape for 19 image rows and the async job path, the Sume price is what you pay for that. Re-run this comparison after the next catalog update, since the pricing code is the one place where the Sume number is set.