Migrating from gemini-2.5-flash to gemini-3-flash-preview

What changes when you move from gemini-2.5-flash to gemini-3-flash-preview: input price +66.7%, output price +20%.

From: gemini-2.5-flash
Status: Active
Shutdown: none announced
Time left: —

To: gemini-3-flash-preview
Status: Active
Shutdown: none announced
Time left: —

Prices

USD per 1M tokens, standard tier

Type	gemini-2.5-flash	gemini-3-flash-preview	Change
Input	$0.30first seen October 1, 2026 · source	$0.50first seen October 1, 2026 · source	+66.7%
Cached input	$0.03first seen October 1, 2026 · source	$0.05first seen October 1, 2026 · source	+66.7%
Output	$2.50first seen October 1, 2026 · source	$3.00first seen October 1, 2026 · source	+20%

At 1M input and 250K output tokens a month: $0.925 on gemini-2.5-flash, $1.25 on gemini-3-flash-preview (+35.1%).

Other tiers, prompt-size bands and modalities are on each model's page.

Limits

Tokens

Limit	gemini-2.5-flash	gemini-3-flash-preview	Change
Context window	1,048,576 tokensin place when tracking began (October 6, 2026) · source	1,048,576 tokensin place when tracking began (October 6, 2026) · source	0%
Max output tokens	65,536 tokensin place when tracking began (October 6, 2026) · source	65,536 tokensin place when tracking began (October 6, 2026) · source	0%

Benchmarks

Same benchmark, source and setting on both sides

Benchmark	gemini-2.5-flash	gemini-3-flash-preview	Change
Arena TextArena. Ranges don't overlap. Other settings not rated → 1458 ±3 thinking minimal	1409 ±2	1473 ±4	+64
Arena Text: CodingArena. Ranges don't overlap. Other settings not rated → 1490 ±5 thinking minimal	1424 ±4	1506 ±8	+82
Arena VisionArena. Ranges don't overlap. Other settings not rated → 1260 ±5 thinking minimal	1215 ±5	1273 ±5	+58

A score from one source is never compared with another source's, and company-reported scores are compared only within the same company; settings named where they differ. Data: Arena (arena.ai), CC BY 4.0.

Features and parameters

Compare models

Same on both

Structured outputs: supported on both.gemini-2.5-flash: in place when tracking began (October 6, 2026) · source · gemini-3-flash-preview: in place when tracking began (October 6, 2026) · source
Function calling: supported on both.gemini-2.5-flash: in place when tracking began (October 6, 2026) · source · gemini-3-flash-preview: in place when tracking began (October 6, 2026) · source
Prompt caching: supported on both.gemini-2.5-flash: in place when tracking began (October 6, 2026) · source · gemini-3-flash-preview: in place when tracking began (October 6, 2026) · source
Batch API: supported on both.gemini-2.5-flash: in place when tracking began (October 6, 2026) · source · gemini-3-flash-preview: in place when tracking began (October 6, 2026) · source
Image input: supported on both.gemini-2.5-flash: in place when tracking began (October 6, 2026) · source · gemini-3-flash-preview: in place when tracking began (October 6, 2026) · source
Reasoning / thinking: supported on both.gemini-2.5-flash: in place when tracking began (October 6, 2026) · source · gemini-3-flash-preview: in place when tracking began (October 6, 2026) · source
Built-in web search: supported on both.gemini-2.5-flash: in place when tracking began (October 6, 2026) · source · gemini-3-flash-preview: in place when tracking began (October 6, 2026) · source

Not published for gemini-2.5-flash: PDF input, Fine-tuning, temperature parameter, top_p parameter, logprobs.

Not published for gemini-3-flash-preview: Fine-tuning, temperature parameter, top_p parameter, logprobs.

Free tier

gemini-2.5-flash: Free tier, in place when tracking began (October 7, 2026) (source)

gemini-3-flash-preview: Free tier, in place when tracking began (October 7, 2026) (source) · All free models

Aliases

All aliases

No aliases point at either model.

On cloud platforms

All platform dates

Model	Platform	Platform ID	Shutdown	Time left
gemini-2.5-flash	Google Cloud Vertex AI	gemini-2.5-flash	Oct 20, 2026Active	5 days

Read daily from each platform's own pages. The status above uses each company's own date. Time left counts to 00:00 UTC on the shutdown date, which is the evening before in ET.

Checklist

Change the model string from gemini-2.5-flash to gemini-3-flash-preview.
Re-check costs: gemini-3-flash-preview costs more than gemini-2.5-flash (input +66.7%, output +20%).

Compared from AIWire's published data when this page loaded. Each fact links to the page it came from. Model pages: gemini-2.5-flash, gemini-3-flash-preview.