High-throughput multimodal work with video, audio, and PDF ingestion
How Gemini 3.6 Flash compares
The nearest models people weigh against it, and what actually separates them.
vs Gemini 3.5 Flash — Against Gemini 3.5 Flash (Google), Gemini 3.6 Flash runs about 57% cheaper per token. Take Gemini 3.6 Flash unless you specifically need what Gemini 3.5 Flash does better.
vs GPT-6 Astra — Against GPT-6 Astra (OpenAI), Gemini 3.6 Flash runs about 93% cheaper per token, gives up 1x on context and answers faster. Take Gemini 3.6 Flash unless you specifically need what GPT-6 Astra does better.
vs Claude Fable 5.1 — Against Claude Fable 5.1 (Anthropic), Gemini 3.6 Flash runs about 93% cheaper per token, takes 1x the context and answers faster. Take Gemini 3.6 Flash unless you specifically need what Claude Fable 5.1 does better.
Price History
Gemini 3.6 Flash pricing over time
→0% since Aug 7
25 data points · tracked daily since Aug 7, 2026
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Start using Gemini 3.6 Flash
Cost-efficient long-horizon agents and computer use. Start free — no card required.
Google's I/O 2026 headliner — a Flash-tier model that beats Gemini 3.1 Pro on agentic and coding benchmarks while running roughly 4x faster than comparable frontier models.
Verdict
Excellent fast agentic model, superseded by Gemini 3.6 Flash.
Quality score
89%
Pricing
$1.50/1M in
$9.00/1M out
Speed
Fast
4/5 speed
Context
1.0M tokens
Released at Google I/O, May 19, 2026. Batch API half price; context caching $0.15/1M. 65,536-token output limit.
OpenAI's September 3, 2026 frontier release — the first GPT-6 model and OpenAI's answer to Claude Fable 5.1 two days earlier. State of the art on computer use (OSWorld 2.0 72.6% in ~47% less time than GPT-5.6 Sol), agentic coding (Terminal-Bench 4.0 57.9%), and frontier math (FrontierMath Tier 4 97.6%). $10/$50 per 1M tokens, 1.05M context, 128K output, knowledge cutoff April 30, 2026.
Verdict
OpenAI's frontier answer to Fable 5.1 — computer-use and agentic-coding leader at $10/$50.
Quality score
99%
Pricing
$10.00/1M in
$50.00/1M out
Speed
Deliberate
2/5 speed
Context
1.1M tokens
Released September 3, 2026. API ID gpt-6-astra; rolling out over the coming days to ChatGPT Plus, Pro, Business and Enterprise (usage inside existing allowances; GPT-6 Astra Pro for Pro/Business/Enterprise; Enterprise off by default), the OpenAI API, Microsoft Azure and Amazon Bedrock. Standard API pricing $10/$50 per 1M tokens; Fast mode is up to 2x speed at 2x price; cache reads and writes have separate rates. Model docs list 1,050,000 context, 128,000 max output, knowledge cutoff April 30, 2026, reasoning efforts up to 'max'. Published launch numbers (Astra / GPT-5.6 Sol / Fable 5.1 / Opus 5): OSWorld 2.0 72.6 / 65.7 / — / 70.2; Terminal-Bench 4.0 57.9 / 37.3 / 55.8 / 52.3; Terminal-Bench Science 0.1 64.6 / 22.4 / 52.6 / 30.0; FrontierMath Tier 4 v2 97.6 / 83.0 / 87.8 / 73.2; GPQA Diamond 96.0 / 94.6 / 93.7 / 93.7; Humanity's Last Exam w/ tools 57.2 / — / 65.0 / 63.6; AutomationBench 41.4 / 18.1 / 31.4 / 26.9; DeepSWE v1.1 74.1 / 72.7 / 67.4 / 73.7; ARC-AGI-2 95.0 / 92.5 / 90.0 / 90.4; ARC-AGI-3 99.9 (OpenAI responses-API harness; ARC Prize's stateless runs score far lower) / 7.8 / — / 30.2; ExploitBench 100.0 / 78.5 / — / 70; SRE-Bench 88.0 / 55.9; Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index v4.1.1 61.2 / 60.9 / 65.7 / 63.1. Meets the Critical threshold for cybersecurity under OpenAI's Preparedness Framework; advanced cyber workflows gated behind OpenAI Daybreak. All figures from OpenAI's launch post and model docs, verified September 4, 2026.
Computer use leaderFrontierAgenticReasoningLong contextPremiumNew
Best for
Computer and browser use, long-horizon agentic coding, and frontier math and science work
Anthropic's September 1, 2026 frontier release and the new capability ceiling for coding, agents, and scientific work. Base pricing is unchanged at $10/$50, but cache reads dropped 75% to $0.25/1M — roughly 25% cheaper on typical workloads and up to 45% cheaper on agentic ones. 1M context, 128K output, adaptive thinking always on.
Verdict
New frontier leader — better than Fable 5 on every published benchmark, and cheaper to run.
Quality score
98%
Pricing
$10.00/1M in
$50.00/1M out
Speed
Deliberate
2/5 speed
Context
1M tokens
Released September 1, 2026 alongside Claude Mythos 5.1, the first update to the Mythos-class line since Fable 5 on June 9. API ID claude-fable-5-1; generally available on the Claude API, Amazon Bedrock, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Foundry. Published launch numbers (Fable 5.1 / Fable 5 / Opus 5 / GPT-5.6 Sol): Terminal-Bench-Science 0.1 52.6 / 24.7 / 29.0 / 22.4; Terminal-Bench 4.0 55.8 / 42.0 / 52.3 / 37.3; CursorBench 3.2.0 73.4 / 70.5 / 70.0 / 67.2; AutomationBench 31.4 / 17.1 / 26.9 / 19.6; OSWorld 2.0 strict 41.7 / 36.1 / 39.6; Humanity's Last Exam (no tools) 60.9 / 57.8 / 56.6; GDPval-AA v2 1853 / 1723 / 1824 / 1711. GDPval-AA v2 is rescaled from the v1 numbers quoted on the Fable 5 page and is not directly comparable to them.
Gemini 3.6 Flash costs $0.75 per million input tokens and $3.75 per million output tokens on the API, with cached input at $0.075 per million. A month of 10M input and 2M output tokens runs about $15.00 at list price, before any batch or caching discounts.
What is the context window of Gemini 3.6 Flash?
Gemini 3.6 Flash has a 1M tokens context window, with up to 64k tokens of output per response. That is the total of prompt plus response the model can hold in one request.
What is the knowledge cutoff of Gemini 3.6 Flash?
Gemini 3.6 Flash's training data runs through March 2026, and the model was released on July 21, 2026. For anything after that date it needs web search or documents in the prompt.
What is Gemini 3.6 Flash best for?
Gemini 3.6 Flash is best for cost-efficient long-horizon agents and computer use. It is a strong fit when that workflow matters more than the tradeoffs around balanced pricing and fast speed.
When should I avoid Gemini 3.6 Flash?
You need raw frontier reasoning ceiling — Claude Opus 5 and GPT-5.6 Sol lead the hardest tasks.
What is a cheaper alternative to Gemini 3.6 Flash?
Grok 4.5 (xAI) at $2.00/1M/1M input against Gemini 3.6 Flash's $0.75/1M/1M. Best cost-per-solved-task coding agent — efficiency over ceiling. Compare it first if Gemini 3.6 Flash's pricing is the thing stopping you.
What is a faster alternative to Gemini 3.6 Flash?
Gemini 3.5 Flash — fast against Gemini 3.6 Flash's fast, with 1.0M tokens of context. Worth the swap when response time is what your users notice rather than the last few points of reasoning depth.
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