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Google Launches Nano Banana 2 Lite, Its Fastest and Cheapest Image Model

June 30, 2026 at 15:04 EDT

Media Generation
Foundation Models

On June 30, 2026, Google launched Nano Banana 2 Lite (officially Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite Image), an image generation model for Gemini. It produces text-to-image results in as little as about 4 seconds and is priced at roughly half that of Nano Banana 2, positioned as a speed- and cost-first model.

June 30, 2026 · Google DeepMind

Nano Banana 2 Lite: the cheapest, fastest image model in the family

Google makes Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite Image generally available — text-to-image in as little as four seconds, starting at $0.034 per 1K image, built for high-volume, fast-iteration pipelines.

~4s

Fastest text-to-image generation in the series

$0.034

Per image at 1K resolution — lowest in the family

~¼

The cost of the Pro version per image

Price per 1K image

Taller column = higher cost. Same unit across all three.

$0.034

Lite

high throughput

$0.067

Nano Banana 2

standard quality

$0.134

Pro

from — high quality

Retained capabilities

Image editing Character consistency Multi-image fusion Text-reading accuracy

Optimized for advertising, prototyping, social apps and design iteration — centered on 1K resolution.

Where it shines

Developers welcome the cost efficiency and rapid iteration — well suited to high-throughput pipelines, A/B testing and real-time apps.

Where it may fall short

Quality sits close to Nano Banana 2, but may trail Pro on complex layouts and fine typography. Concrete use-case verification still to accumulate.

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