How Google’s New Gemini Rates Work and How to Track Your Usage

Earlier this summer, Google rolled out a bunch of upgrades to its Gemini AI apps, making them more powerful than ever. Google’s AI can now work across more apps, and it’s getting increasingly difficult to use anything made by Google without bumping into some kind of AI feature or assistant.

Besides all of the AI upgrades though, there are also new limits on usage. Google has completely revamped the way that AI usage is measured and metered out across the various tiers: Free, Plus, Pro, and Ultra.

If you’ve suddenly found yourself running out of credit at the Gemini AI bank and being told to wait before making any further prompt requests, this might be why. Here’s what’s changing, and how to check where your AI credit stands.

Faster models capable of greater complexity will require more credits to run.

Google now measures Gemini AI usage by the computing power requirements of your requests, not by the number of requests you make. So, whereas before you might have been able to generate three videos a day, now you might find you can generate only two if the videos are particularly complex.

It makes more sense from Google’s perspective, because it’s measuring how much you’re actually costing the company and its data centers in terms of resources. However, it’s all a bit vague for end users, who are now less sure about when they’ll hit their limits—and it means you can’t rely on a rule like “5 image generations a day.”

What’s more, Google says in its support docs that “access is subject to change or may be limited based on testing, experimentation or availability”—which roughly translates as “some days may be different from others” when it comes to how much AI prompting you can do. Again, easier for Google to manage, more confusing for actual users.

The two main factors that go into how much AI you can use are the plan you’re on, and the complexity and length of your prompts—asking for a weather forecast versus asking for a mini-app to be coded, for example. On top of that, the Gemini AI model you use (for example, 3.5 Flash) makes a difference too. You can select the preferred model from the prompt box.

Video generation is more resource-intensive.

If you’re in the US, you’ve got four Gemini AI subscriptions to choose from, or you can stick to the free tier. The subscription plans are AI Plus ($8 a month), AI Pro ($20 a month), and AI Ultra (either $100 or $200 a month). The more you pay, the more AI usage you get, which means using more advanced AI models for longer.