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Gemini 4 Carbon now open to all paid Gemini API developers
Google's strongest model leaves limited access, at $2/$10 until November 30.
Google made Gemini 4 Carbon generally available on November 10, 2026, as gemini-4-carbon on the paid tier of the Gemini API and in Google AI Studio. Until now Carbon was limited to a group of cyber defenders and Fairwind Program partners, after Google announced it on October 28 (our earlier post). Google also lists it in Gemini for business.
What changed
- New model ID:
gemini-4-carbon, open to all paying Gemini API developers. It is not on the free tier. - Introductory price through November 30, 2026: $2 input and $10 output per million tokens. From December 1, 2026: $4 input and $20 output.
- Context window of 1,048,576 tokens. Max output is 65,536 tokens by default, or up to 1,048,576 with long decode.
- Inputs: text, image, video, audio and PDF. Output: text. Thinking levels
low,mediumandhigh, withmediumas the default. - Context caching is implicit only. Explicit caching is not supported.
Google list prices
Per million tokens, from the Gemini API pricing page on November 10, 2026. Thinking tokens bill as output.
| Item | Through Nov 30 | From Dec 1 |
|---|---|---|
| Standard input | $2.00 | $4.00 |
| Standard cached input | $0.10 | $0.20 |
| Standard output | $10.00 | $20.00 |
| Batch input | $1.00 | $2.00 |
| Batch output | $5.00 | $10.00 |
What to do
- Budget any workload that runs past November 30 at $4 input and $20 output.
- Plan for implicit caching only. Code that creates explicit caches will need a different path on Carbon.
- Gemini 4 Carbon is not in the RouterPlus catalog as of November 10, 2026. See the Google models on RouterPlus.