Nano Banana 2 — Google's Gemini 3.1 Flash Image model — is priced per image on HiAPI, not per seat or per month. As of October 2026, the live rate pulled from HiAPI's pricing endpoint is $0.036 at 1K, $0.057 at 2K, and $0.086 at 4K per generated image. There's no subscription tier to buy into and no minimum spend; you're billed only for images that actually complete.
This guide breaks down exactly what you pay, how that compares to calling the same model directly through Google, and how to keep costs predictable once you're generating at volume.
How HiAPI Bills Nano Banana 2
Nano Banana 2 runs through HiAPI's async task endpoint like every other image model on the platform: you submit a generation request, HiAPI returns a task id, and you're charged once the task finishes successfully. Failed or errored tasks aren't billed.
The price scales with the resolution you request, not with prompt length or number of reference images:
| Resolution | Price per image |
|---|---|
| 1K | $0.036 |
| 2K | $0.057 |
| 4K | $0.086 |
That's the full pricing model — three fixed tiers, no hidden per-token or per-second math. If you need the current number at the moment you're budgeting a large run, the live figures are always on HiAPI's pricing page, since rates can move as upstream vendor costs change.
If 1K is overkill for your use case, HiAPI also lists a separate Nano Banana 2 Lite tier at roughly $0.033 per image, fixed at 1K output — worth checking if you're generating thumbnails or drafts rather than final assets.
Nano Banana 2 via HiAPI vs. Calling Gemini Directly
Nano Banana 2 is Google's branding-free way of referring to the Gemini 3.1 Flash Image model inside HiAPI's catalog. If you called that same model directly through Google's Gemini API instead, you'd be billed by token rather than by finished image: Google's own pricing page (checked October 2026) lists $0.50 per million input tokens, $3 per million output text tokens, and $60 per million output image tokens for this model — and translates that into roughly $0.067 per image at 1K, $0.10 at 2K, and $0.15 at 4K once you work through its own stated image-token equivalents.
Lined up side by side:
| Resolution | HiAPI (Nano Banana 2) | Calling Gemini directly |
|---|---|---|
| 1K | $0.036 | ~$0.067 |
| 2K | $0.057 | ~$0.10 |
| 4K | $0.086 | ~$0.15 |
At every tier, HiAPI's flat per-call price comes in meaningfully below Google's direct token-based billing for the same model — and you skip the token-accounting math entirely. That gap is also why it's worth checking both sides again before you commit to a billing path: these are live, moving numbers, not fixed contracts.
The other practical difference is that HiAPI gives you one key and one bill across every model it hosts, not just this one. If your workflow already mixes Nano Banana 2 with other generation models — see how it stacks up against GPT Image 2.5 or Ideogram V4 for the quality side of that tradeoff — you're not managing separate vendor accounts to do it.
Estimating Your Cost at Scale
The math is simple because the pricing is flat per resolution tier — multiply the per-image price by the volume you expect:
- 1,000 images at 1K → 1,000 × $0.036 = $36
- 1,000 images at 2K → 1,000 × $0.057 = $57
- 10,000 images/month at 1K → 10,000 × $0.036 = $360/month
A few things worth deciding deliberately before a large batch job, rather than defaulting to the highest resolution:
- Resolution is your biggest lever. Dropping from 2K to 1K cuts cost by roughly 37%; dropping from 4K to 2K cuts it by roughly 34%. Match the tier to where the image actually ships — thumbnails and previews rarely need 4K.
- Iterate cheap, finalize expensive. Test and refine prompts at 1K, and only re-render the final accepted output at 2K or 4K once you're happy with it.
- Separate draft traffic from production traffic. If you're generating variations for a human to pick from, Nano Banana 2 Lite's ~$0.033 flat 1K price is cheaper than the full model's 1K tier for that exploratory step.
- Re-check pricing before committing a budget, especially for anything over a few thousand images — these are live figures that can change, and the pricing page is always the source of truth, not a number you saw last month.
FAQ
Is there a subscription or monthly plan for Nano Banana 2 on HiAPI? No. It's pay-per-call — you're charged per successfully completed image, at whichever resolution tier you requested. There's no seat fee or minimum commitment.
Does the price change based on aspect ratio or prompt complexity? No — pricing is tiered strictly by output resolution (1K/2K/4K). Aspect ratio and prompt length don't factor into the per-image charge.
Can I use the same API key for Nano Banana 2 and other models? Yes. HiAPI uses one key and one bill across its full model catalog — see the docs for how to point an existing integration at Nano Banana 2's task endpoint.
How does Nano Banana 2 compare to other image models on cost and quality, not just price? For the quality/feature side of that question, see the head-to-head write-ups against GPT Image 2.5 and Ideogram V4. This piece is scoped to pricing specifically.
Takeaways
- Nano Banana 2 on HiAPI is billed per successful image generation — no subscription, no seat fee, no minimum spend.
- As of October 2026, live pricing is $0.036 (1K), $0.057 (2K), and $0.086 (4K) per image; re-verify on the pricing page before budgeting a large run, since these figures can change.
- Calling Gemini 3.1 Flash Image directly through Google bills by token and works out more expensive per finished image at every resolution tier checked this month.
- Resolution tier — not aspect ratio or prompt length — is the main cost lever. Default to 1K unless the use case genuinely needs more detail, and consider Nano Banana 2 Lite for draft/exploratory generations.
Ready to call it? Check the Nano Banana 2 model page for the live endpoint details, or head to the docs to start generating with your existing HiAPI key.
