Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview
Google · released Mar 3, 2026
- Type
- Closed
- Input
- $0.25
- Output
- $1.50
- Cached
- None held
List price · per 1M tokens · Google AI at 1M context · machine-readable source ↗
Our take
Written Sep 17, 2026Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview is a hosted-only model from Google that takes text, images, files, audio and video in one request. Its only measured quality is human preference on the text arena, where it sits mid-pack, so treat it as a candidate to trial rather than a proven pick.
Use it when a single request has to carry several kinds of media at once, or when a long document would otherwise need splitting before you can ask about it. We list no download for it, so using it means choosing a host. Skip it if you need to run the model yourself, or if you need measured coding or reasoning accuracy rather than preference votes.
The case for it
- Text, images, files, audio and video can go into one request, so a screenshot, a recording and a document do not need separate tools.
- The request capacity takes a long report or a stack of documents beside the question, though reliable recall across all of it is unverified in our data.
- Human preference is recorded across seven categories, from coding to creative writing, so you can see where it placed before you commit.
The case against it
- We list no download for it, so using it means choosing a host, and the licence terms are not disclosed in our data, so commercial use and redistribution cannot be confirmed.
- Every score comes from human pairwise votes on the text arena, which records which answer people preferred rather than whether it was correct.
- Web-app building is its lowest measured category, well below its coding score, so building an app from a prompt is the least supported use.
How good is it?
EverydayGeneral questions and everyday reasoning
Arena Text (overall)69th of 168 · 1433
CodingWriting and fixing code on its own
Arena Coding87th of 168 · 1458
AgenticPlanning, calling tools, staying on task
Not yet scored on Arena Agent.
WritingDrafting and rewriting prose
Arena Creative Writing53rd of 168 · 1413
Arena Creative Writing is the only board that has scored it for this.
These tests check whether a model follows instructions — a precondition for all the work above, but not a measure of how well that work is done.
Every published score for this model7 scoresEvery figure we hold, from 7 boards, with who ran it and a link to the source — including the boards no rating above is built on.
Where to rent it
Prices checked between 59 min and 1 hour ago — each listing carries its own date.
Google AI, direct
The lab is the cheapest at this context. The strip above and this offer are the same one, compared at 1M of context. One cheaper row below is outside that comparison: a non-standard pricing tier.
- per 1M tokens
- $0.25 in / $1.50 out
- Context served
- 1M
- Throughput
- Not measured
| Provider | In / out per 1M tokens | Context | Throughput | Trains on prompts | Logs prompts | Zero retention |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Google AI Studioflex tierThrough OpenRouter | $0.13 / $0.75checked 1 hour ago | 1M66K max reply | 86 tok/s | No | Yes55 days | Unknown |
| OpenRouterOpenRouter's own listing | $0.25 / $1.50checked 1 hour ago | 1M | not measured | Unknown | Unknown | Unknown |
| Google AIDirect | $0.25 / $1.50checked 59 min ago | 1M66K max reply | not measured | Unknown | Unknown | Unknown |
| Google AI StudioThrough OpenRouter | $0.25 / $1.50checked 1 hour ago | 1M66K max reply | 66 tok/s | No | Yes55 days | Unknown |
| Google AI Studiopriority tierThrough OpenRouter | $0.45 / $2.70checked 1 hour ago | 1M66K max reply | 22 tok/s | No | Yes55 days | Unknown |
Google AI Studio
OpenRouterAcross the 5 listings we hold: 3 say they do not train on prompts, 0 say they do and 2 do not say. 0 appear in the zero-retention registry we check; the rest are unknown to us.
What each host's API supports
From the parameter list each endpoint publishes. Streaming is omitted: nothing we hold reports it, for any model.
| Provider | Tool calling | JSON output | Strict schema |
|---|---|---|---|
| Google AI StudioflexThrough OpenRouter | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| OpenRouterOpenRouter's own listing | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Google AIDirect | |||
| Google AI StudioThrough OpenRouter | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Google AI StudiopriorityThrough OpenRouter | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Tool calling: 4 of 5 listings say yes, 1 publishes no parameter list. JSON output: 4 of 5 listings say yes, 1 publishes no parameter list. Strict schema: 4 of 5 listings say yes, 1 publishes no parameter list.
When we formed this view
Recent changes
What moved
first indexed by our pipelineEach date is the day we first saw the change, or the day the maker announced it.
What we do not know about this model yet
- 1 of 5 listings publishes no parameter list, so what its API accepts is unknown to us.
- Nothing we hold says whether an endpoint streams, so we do not show it either way.
- 2 of 5 listings do not say whether they train on prompts.
- We hold no batch or off-peak rate for any of its listings.
Licence and identifiers
What the licence allowsWe hold no licence record for this model. Inside are the identifiers you need to pull it — its Hugging Face repo where we have one, our slug and a machine-readable card.
Licence
We hold no licence record for this model, and no record of published weights either — so we can neither summarise its terms nor point you at the weights.
Identifiers
- Takes in, gives back
- Text, images, audio, video and documents in, text out
- Catalogue slug
- google-gemini-3-1-flash-lite-preview