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Baseten vs Google Gemini API

SEPT 2026 audit

A comparison of Baseten and Google Gemini API built from values read directly from each provider's own documentation, with the source recorded against every figure.

Reviewed by Palash BagchiUpdated 27 criteria comparedSources last checked

The short answer

Choose Baseten if…

Teams that want per-token APIs and dedicated GPUs from one vendor with no plan fee — minute-granularity billing means a model that runs for ten minutes costs ten minutes.

Editorial · Palash Bagchi · approved

Choose Google Gemini API if…

Getting to a working prototype without a card, then staying on the cheapest frontier-adjacent rates in this set — $0.75 per million input tokens is well under half what Anthropic and OpenAI charge for their top models.

Editorial · Palash Bagchi · approved

Consider something else if…

  • Baseten: Its dedicated H100 works out at $6.50 an hour, roughly three times DeepInfra's, so steady GPU workloads pay a premium for the platform around them.
  • Google Gemini API: The rates are dated: they roughly double on 1 January 2027, free-tier content is used to improve Google's products, and rate limits are not published anywhere you can read before signing up.

16 sourced criteria separate them — see where, with sources, below.

Visit Baseten documentationVisit Google Gemini API documentation

No affiliate links, sponsored placements or paid rankings appear on this site. Ordering follows the sourced data and the stated criteria.

01.

At a glance.

CriterionBasetenGoogle Gemini API
Pricing
Free tier
No — New workspaces get starting credits for testing; usage beyond them is billed per minute.
Yes
Kind of free offerFree creditFree tier
Entry paid plan$0 per month on the Basic plan — pay as you go, with dedicated deployments, model APIs and training included rather than gated behind a fee.$5 minimum prepaid credit to move from the Free Tier to the Paid Tier; the minimum credit purchase is $5 and the maximum $5,000. No monthly plan fee — usage is billed per token. Applies to the Prepay billing plan; some accounts are offered or assigned Postpay instead.
Pricing modelNo platform fee: per-token Model APIs for open models, and dedicated deployments billed per minute of compute with volume discounts. The Pro tier buys priority access to high-demand GPUs rather than a lower rate.Per million tokens, with dated price changes published in advance — the current Gemini 3.x rates are explicitly promotional through 31 December 2026 and roughly double on 1 January 2027. A free tier exists, and its content is used to improve Google's products where the paid tier's is not.
Infrastructure
RegionsTwo Baseten regions selectable for regional deployments: us (United States) and eu (European Union); other regions by request to support. GPU model deployments only; Chains, training jobs and shared CPU types cannot select a region.Google publishes availability as a country list rather than deployment regions: the Gemini API and Google AI Studio are listed as available in 230 countries and territories, counted from the page's own list, which publishes no total. Country and territory availability for access, not a choice of data region.
Inference
Input price, top model
$1.40 per million input tokens for GLM-5.3, with cached input at $0.14 and output at $4.40. GLM-5.2 Fast, a speed variant, is $2.10.
$0.75 per million input tokens for Gemini 3.8 Flash through 31 December 2026, then $1.50. Gemini 3.1 Pro, still preview, is $2.00 for prompts up to 200k tokens and $4.00 above.
Output price, top model
$4.40 per million output tokens for GLM-5.3.
$3.75 per million output tokens for Gemini 3.8 Flash through 31 December 2026, then $7.50. Thinking tokens are billed as output.
Input price, cheapest model
$0.10 per million input tokens for GPT OSS 120B, with output at $0.50. GLM-5.3-Flash is $0.15 in and $0.50 out.
$0.30 per million input tokens for Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite, with output at $2.50.
Context window
1,048K tokens on the DeepSeek V4 line and the GLM 5.2/5.3 family, the widest it serves; 262K on the Kimi K2 models, 200K on GLM 4.7 and 128K on GPT OSS 120B. Baseten's table publishes these in thousands, so the magnitude is 1,048,000 rather than the 1,048,576 a power-of-two reading would give — the vendor's own figure, not a conversion of it.
1,048,576 tokens for Gemini 3.8 Flash. Read from the Vertex AI model card: the Gemini API docs build their model cards client-side and publish no figure a fetch can read.
Max output tokens
262K tokens on most models, and it is a separate ceiling from the context window rather than the remainder of it: DeepSeek V4 Flash 0731 allows 384K output inside a 1,048K window, while GLM 4.7, Nemotron Ultra and GPT OSS 120B cap output at their full context. The Inkling models are the outlier at 32K.
65,536 tokens for Gemini 3.8 Flash, and Google counts thinking tokens as output.
Prompt cachingSupportedSupported
Rate limitsTwo limits, requests and tokens per minute, set by account status rather than spend: an unverified Basic account gets 15 RPM and 100,000 TPM, a verified Basic or Pro account 120 RPM and 500,000 TPM, Enterprise custom. Cached input counts toward TPM at full weight even though it is billed cheaper.Tied to a usage tier — Free, then Tier 1/2/3 unlocked by cumulative spend — and enforced as requests per minute, input tokens per minute and requests per day. Google publishes no numbers in the docs: limits are viewed in AI Studio and are stated not to be guaranteed.
Compliance
ISO 27001
ISO 27001:2022 listed as a compliance program; an ISO 27001 certificate for Baseten Labs, Inc. is published in the Trust Center for request. Certificate is request-access in the Trust Center, not a public download.
Google commits to maintain ISO/IEC 27001:2013 certification for the Processor Services, which include Gemini API Paid Services. Contractual commitment in the DPA the Gemini API terms incorporate, not a Gemini-specific ISO certificate.
GDPR / data residency
Baseten Cloud supports a GDPR compliance program; residency is set with regional environments or a region on a single deployment.
Processed under Google's Data Processing Addendum on the paid tier; abuse-detection logs may be stored or cached in any country where Google has facilities. Scope: the logs Google keeps for Paid Services to detect Prohibited Use Policy violations.
Encryption at restTrust Center control: datastores housing sensitive customer data are encrypted at rest, and transmission over public networks is encrypted.Google security policies mandate encryption at rest for all user data; personal data is encrypted at the storage level, generally using AES256. From the processor DPA that the Gemini API Additional Terms incorporate for Paid Services.
Role-based access control
Role-based access control with three organization roles - Admin, Member and Viewer - in a single-team organization.
The only IAM role published for the Gemini API is a service agent role for GCS reads; the reference states there are no IAM permissions for the service.
Dedicated infrastructureSingle-tenant runs workloads in an isolated VPC in Baseten Cloud with compute restricted to your organization; Enterprise, custom pricing.Provisioned throughput is offered as optional access on the Enterprise tier, which the pricing page says is powered by Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform.

Only criteria both providers publish appear here; a tinted cell marks a real difference. Criteria only one of them documents are listed below, and an absence there means we found no source — not that the feature is missing. How we source this.

The small bar above a value is inetGeek's own lean toward that side — computed from the same facts shown, never a number the provider published. See the picker below "The short answer" to weigh only the criteria you care about.

02.

Where they differ.

Free tier

Baseten
No — New workspaces get starting credits for testing; usage beyond them is billed per minute.
Google Gemini API
Yes
Sources (2) →

Kind of free offer

Baseten
Free credit
Google Gemini API
Free tier
Sources (2) →

Entry paid plan

Baseten
$0 per month on the Basic plan — pay as you go, with dedicated deployments, model APIs and training included rather than gated behind a fee.
Google Gemini API
$5 minimum prepaid credit to move from the Free Tier to the Paid Tier; the minimum credit purchase is $5 and the maximum $5,000. No monthly plan fee — usage is billed per token. Applies to the Prepay billing plan; some accounts are offered or assigned Postpay instead.
Sources (2) →
  • Pricing — Baseten ↗

    “Baseten $0 per month, pay as you go Get started [...] Included in Basic: Dedicated deployments Model APIs Training Fast cold starts SOC 2 Type II and HIPAA compliant”

    Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing · Report a correction

  • Billing | Gemini API | Google AI for Developers ↗

    “Upgrading from the Free Tier to the Paid Tier means linking a billing account and prepaying to add a minimum of $5 (or equivalent in other currencies) of credits to your account. [...] The minimum purchase is $5. The maximum amount of credits you can prepay for is $5,000.”

    Read 2026-09-13 · official docs · Report a correction

Pricing model

Baseten
No platform fee: per-token Model APIs for open models, and dedicated deployments billed per minute of compute with volume discounts. The Pro tier buys priority access to high-demand GPUs rather than a lower rate.
Google Gemini API
Per million tokens, with dated price changes published in advance — the current Gemini 3.x rates are explicitly promotional through 31 December 2026 and roughly double on 1 January 2027. A free tier exists, and its content is used to improve Google's products where the paid tier's is not.
Sources (2) →
  • Pricing — Baseten ↗

    “$0 per month, pay as you go [...] Only pay for the compute you use, down to the minute. Volume discounts available [...] Pro Unlimited autoscaling and priority compute access [...] Priority access to high-demand GPUs”

    Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing · Report a correction

  • Gemini Developer API Pricing ↗

    “Paid Tier, per 1M tokens in USD [...] $0.75 through December 31, 2026. $1.50 starting January 1, 2027. [...] Used to improve our products | Yes | No”

    Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing · Report a correction

Regions

Baseten
Two Baseten regions selectable for regional deployments: us (United States) and eu (European Union); other regions by request to support. GPU model deployments only; Chains, training jobs and shared CPU types cannot select a region.
Google Gemini API
Google publishes availability as a country list rather than deployment regions: the Gemini API and Google AI Studio are listed as available in 230 countries and territories, counted from the page's own list, which publishes no total. Country and territory availability for access, not a choice of data region.
Sources (2) →

Input price, top model

Baseten
$1.40 per million input tokens for GLM-5.3, with cached input at $0.14 and output at $4.40. GLM-5.2 Fast, a speed variant, is $2.10.
Google Gemini API
$0.75 per million input tokens for Gemini 3.8 Flash through 31 December 2026, then $1.50. Gemini 3.1 Pro, still preview, is $2.00 for prompts up to 200k tokens and $4.00 above.
Sources (2) →
  • Pricing — Baseten ↗

    “GLM-5.3 GLM-5.3 $1.40 $1.40 $0.14 $0.14 $4.40 [...] GLM-5.2 Fast GLM-5.2 Fast $2.10 $2.10 $0.21”

    Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing · Report a correction

  • Gemini Developer API Pricing ↗

    “Gemini 3.8 Flash [...] Input price | Free of charge | $0.75 through December 31, 2026. $1.50 starting January 1, 2027. [...] Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview [...] Input price | Not available | $2.00, prompts <= 200k tokens $4.00, prompts > 200k tokens”

    Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing · Report a correction

Output price, top model

Baseten
$4.40 per million output tokens for GLM-5.3.
Google Gemini API
$3.75 per million output tokens for Gemini 3.8 Flash through 31 December 2026, then $7.50. Thinking tokens are billed as output.
Sources (2) →

Input price, cheapest model

Baseten
$0.10 per million input tokens for GPT OSS 120B, with output at $0.50. GLM-5.3-Flash is $0.15 in and $0.50 out.
Google Gemini API
$0.30 per million input tokens for Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite, with output at $2.50.
Sources (2) →

Context window

Baseten

1,048K tokens on the DeepSeek V4 line and the GLM 5.2/5.3 family, the widest it serves; 262K on the Kimi K2 models, 200K on GLM 4.7 and 128K on GPT OSS 120B. Baseten's table publishes these in thousands, so the magnitude is 1,048,000 rather than the 1,048,576 a power-of-two reading would give — the vendor's own figure, not a conversion of it.

Google Gemini API

1,048,576 tokens for Gemini 3.8 Flash. Read from the Vertex AI model card: the Gemini API docs build their model cards client-side and publish no figure a fetch can read.

Sources (2) →

Max output tokens

Baseten

262K tokens on most models, and it is a separate ceiling from the context window rather than the remainder of it: DeepSeek V4 Flash 0731 allows 384K output inside a 1,048K window, while GLM 4.7, Nemotron Ultra and GPT OSS 120B cap output at their full context. The Inkling models are the outlier at 32K.

Google Gemini API

65,536 tokens for Gemini 3.8 Flash, and Google counts thinking tokens as output.

Sources (2) →

Rate limits

Baseten
Two limits, requests and tokens per minute, set by account status rather than spend: an unverified Basic account gets 15 RPM and 100,000 TPM, a verified Basic or Pro account 120 RPM and 500,000 TPM, Enterprise custom. Cached input counts toward TPM at full weight even though it is billed cheaper.
Google Gemini API
Tied to a usage tier — Free, then Tier 1/2/3 unlocked by cumulative spend — and enforced as requests per minute, input tokens per minute and requests per day. Google publishes no numbers in the docs: limits are viewed in AI Studio and are stated not to be guaranteed.
Sources (2) →
  • Pricing and limits — Baseten Docs ↗

    “Basic (unverified) | 15 | 100,000 | Basic (verified) | 120 | 500,000 | Pro | 120 | 500,000 [...] Cached and uncached input tokens count equally toward this limit, even though cached tokens cost less.”

    Read 2026-09-07 · official docs · Report a correction

  • Rate limits — Gemini API ↗

    “Rate limits depend on a variety of factors (such as your usage tier) and can be viewed in Google AI Studio. [...] Specified rate limits are not guaranteed and actual capacity may vary. [...] Usage tier | Qualification | Billing tier cap Free | Active project or free trial | N/A Tier 1 | Set up and link an active billing account | $250”

    Read 2026-09-06 · official docs · Report a correction

ISO 27001

Baseten
ISO 27001:2022 listed as a compliance program; an ISO 27001 certificate for Baseten Labs, Inc. is published in the Trust Center for request. Certificate is request-access in the Trust Center, not a public download.
Google Gemini API
Google commits to maintain ISO/IEC 27001:2013 certification for the Processor Services, which include Gemini API Paid Services. Contractual commitment in the DPA the Gemini API terms incorporate, not a Gemini-specific ISO certificate.
Sources (2) →

GDPR / data residency

Baseten
Baseten Cloud supports a GDPR compliance program; residency is set with regional environments or a region on a single deployment.
Google Gemini API
Processed under Google's Data Processing Addendum on the paid tier; abuse-detection logs may be stored or cached in any country where Google has facilities. Scope: the logs Google keeps for Paid Services to detect Prohibited Use Policy violations.
Sources (2) →

Encryption at rest

Baseten
Trust Center control: datastores housing sensitive customer data are encrypted at rest, and transmission over public networks is encrypted.
Google Gemini API
Google security policies mandate encryption at rest for all user data; personal data is encrypted at the storage level, generally using AES256. From the processor DPA that the Gemini API Additional Terms incorporate for Paid Services.
Sources (2) →

Role-based access control

Baseten
Role-based access control with three organization roles - Admin, Member and Viewer - in a single-team organization.
Google Gemini API
The only IAM role published for the Gemini API is a service agent role for GCS reads; the reference states there are no IAM permissions for the service.
Sources (2) →

Dedicated infrastructure

Baseten
Single-tenant runs workloads in an isolated VPC in Baseten Cloud with compute restricted to your organization; Enterprise, custom pricing.
Google Gemini API
Provisioned throughput is offered as optional access on the Enterprise tier, which the pricing page says is powered by Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform.
Sources (2) →

When these numbers change, hear about it. Sources are re-checked monthly; a repricing goes out as a short note.

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03.

Documented by only one.

These criteria are published by one provider and not the other. An absence here means we have not found a source, not that the feature is missing — except where we say we read the other provider's own page on a given date and it does not state it. Those rows lean, and the provider can correct them with a link.

Uptime SLABaseten: Custom SLAs on Enterprise. No percentage is published on the pricing page.
Batch discountGoogle Gemini API: 50% off through the Batch API, which is a paid-tier feature.
H100 SXM, per GPU-hourBaseten: $6.50 per hour for a dedicated H100 80GB. Baseten publishes $0.10833 per MINUTE — the hourly figure is that times 60, ours rather than Baseten's, and the page offers an hourly toggle. A100 80GB is $0.06667 a minute and B200 $0.16633.
Largest GPU offeredBaseten: 180GB per GPU on a B200, at $0.16633 per minute — $9.98 an hour.
Support on entry paid planBaseten: Email and in-app chat support on Basic, which is pay-as-you-go from $0. Pro adds dedicated support on Slack and Zoom.
SOC 2Baseten: Maintains SOC 2 Type II certification for the inference platform; policies and certifications are held in the Baseten Trust Center.
HIPAABaseten: Maintains HIPAA compliance alongside SOC 2 Type II for model inference on the Baseten platform.
PCI DSSBaseten: PCI DSS - SAQ D listed as a compliance program; a PCI-DSS v4.0.1 AOC for SAQ D Service Provider is published in the Trust Center for request. SAQ D self-assessment AOC, not a QSA Report on Compliance.
Customer-managed keysBaseten: Runtime OIDC BYOK recipes: a model fetches customer-managed keys at runtime to decrypt encrypted weights and to decrypt requests and encrypt responses. Documented under runtime OIDC use cases, implemented in model code via the truss-examples envelope-encryption recipes.
Private networking / VPCBaseten: Single-tenant Enterprise environments expose endpoints via AWS PrivateLink or Google Cloud Private Service Connect, off the public internet.
04.

Questions this comparison answers.

Entry paid plan: Baseten or Google Gemini API?

Baseten: $0 per month on the Basic plan — pay as you go, with dedicated deployments, model APIs and training included rather than gated behind a fee.

Google Gemini API: $5 minimum prepaid credit to move from the Free Tier to the Paid Tier; the minimum credit purchase is $5 and the maximum $5,000. No monthly plan fee — usage is billed per token. Applies to the Prepay billing plan; some accounts are offered or assigned Postpay instead.

Free tier: Baseten or Google Gemini API?

Baseten: No — New workspaces get starting credits for testing; usage beyond them is billed per minute.

Google Gemini API: Yes

Should I choose Baseten or Google Gemini API?

Pick Baseten if Teams that want per-token APIs and dedicated GPUs from one vendor with no plan fee — minute-granularity billing means a model that runs for ten minutes costs ten minutes.

Pick Google Gemini API if Getting to a working prototype without a card, then staying on the cheapest frontier-adjacent rates in this set — $0.75 per million input tokens is well under half what Anthropic and OpenAI charge for their top models.

Provider pages

BasetenModel inference platform with per-token APIs for open models and dedicated deployments billed by the minute.Google Gemini APIHosted inference for the Gemini model family, with a free tier and per-million-token paid pricing.

Related comparisons

Anthropic vs Google Gemini APIBaseten vs AnthropicBaseten vs DeepSeekBaseten vs Fireworks AIBaseten vs Novita AIBaseten vs OpenAIDeepInfra vs BasetenDeepInfra vs Google Gemini API

Comments

Every page here is sourced and dated.