← All posts · News
Gemini 4 Carbon announced at $2 input, $10 output
Google's new frontier model keeps Argon's introductory price. Developer access has no date yet.
On October 28, 2026, Google DeepMind announced Gemini 4 Carbon, its new frontier model, two weeks after Gemini 4 Argon launched. Access starts with a subset of cyber defenders and widens in phases to trusted partners through Google's Fairwind Program. Google says developers, businesses and consumers will get it "as soon as possible" and has not given a date.
What changed
- New model: Gemini 4 Carbon, which Google calls its strongest model, built for long-running coding and agent tasks and for cybersecurity defense.
- Price at launch: $2 per million input tokens and $10 per million output tokens, the same introductory price as Gemini 4 Argon.
- Cached input tokens are 95% off the input price.
- Access: a subset of cyber defenders from the week of October 28, then more trusted partners through the Fairwind Program. There is no general developer access yet.
- Google's announcement does not give an API model ID.
Pricing
Google list prices from the October 28, 2026 announcement, per million tokens. Google calls both prices introductory.
| Model | Input | Cached input | Output |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gemini 4 Carbon | $2.00 | $0.10 | $10.00 |
| Gemini 4 Argon | $2.00 | n/a | $10.00 |
Carbon cached input is 95% off $2.00; the announcement gives no cached rate for Argon. Neither model is in the RouterPlus catalog as of November 1, 2026.
What to do
- Unless you are in the Fairwind Program, there is nothing to switch yet.
- If you plan to test Carbon when it opens, budget at Argon's rate and plan for the introductory price to change.
- Compare current options across labs on the RouterPlus models page.