Google Launches Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite at $0.25

Google released Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite in preview, pricing it at $0.25 per million input tokens and $1.50 for output - by far the cheapest entry in the Gemini 3 lineup. Speed improvements are substantial: 2.5x faster time-to-first-token and 45% higher output throughput compared to Gemini 2.5 Flash. The model ships with adjustable thinking levels from minimal to high, letting developers dial reasoning up or down depending on whether they're running bulk content moderation or generating dashboards. Available now in AI Studio and Vertex AI. Meanwhile, Gemini 3 Pro has quietly been shelved, which says something about where Google sees the real demand - not at the top of the model stack, but at the bottom, where cost per call determines adoption.