Nano Banana 2.1 has no free tier on Google: what Sume bills instead

Is there a free Nano Banana 2.1 API? Not on Google's current pricing page: the free tier column reads "Not available" for input and image output. You pay per image, and on Sume the price is a flat figure per tier that is charged to your wallet only when the image completes.

What does Google's pricing page say?

The rate card for gemini-nano-banana-2.1 is below. The per-image figures are Google's own conversions of $30 per 1M image tokens.

What does the per-image figure leave out?

The $0.0336 and the other conversions cover the image tokens only. Your prompt and reference images are billed as input tokens, and any text or thinking output is billed at the text rate, so the true cost of a call with five references is a little above the headline. Google also charges for grounding beyond the monthly free allowance, which you can leave off.

What does the same call cost on Sume?

Sume bills the provider list price times 1.25, so there is no token arithmetic. Nano Banana 2.1 comes to $0.10 at 1K, $0.15 at 2K and $0.20 at 4K per image. Billing is all-or-nothing per image: a failed or cancelled generation is not charged. Token counts in the response are always 0.

The trade is clear: Sume's price is higher than Google's headline, and it includes the margin, the single wallet and the same call shape for every other image model in the image models docs.

• Budget the call: n images times the tier price.
• Use 1K for drafts and 2K for finals.
• Read the endpoint from GET /v1/images/models/{id}/endpoints and confirm the tier price on one test call, not from a post.

Is there any free way to test?

Google's page lists no free image output for this model. The Sume images docs describe no free image tier either, so assume every test call is billed and keep n at 1 until your prompt works.