# Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite — cost-efficient multimodal model

> Google's cheapest and fastest Gemini 3 model — 2.5x faster first-token delivery than Flash, $0.25 per million input tokens, and a million-token context window.

- Org: Google
- Date: 2026-03-03
- Category: model
- Source: https://blog.google/innovation-and-ai/models-and-research/gemini-models/gemini-3-1-flash-lite/
- Canonical page: https://ai-tldr.dev/releases/google-gemini-3-1-flash-lite/

Google's most cost-efficient Gemini 3 model: 2.5x faster time-to-first-token and 45% faster output than 2.5 Flash, 1M-token context, $0.25/M input — tops six benchmarks over GPT-5 mini and Haiku.

## What it is

Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite is Google's most cost-efficient model in the Gemini 3 series, launched in preview on March 3, 2026. It is built for high-volume developer workloads where speed and cost matter more than maximum capability: translation, content moderation, UI generation, data extraction, and classification.

## How it works

The model processes multimodal prompts (text, images, code) up to 1 million tokens and generates responses up to 64,000 tokens. It delivers first output tokens 2.5x faster than Gemini 2.5 Flash and generates answers 45% faster overall. At $0.25/M input and $1.50/M output, it is priced to compete directly with GPT-5 mini and Claude Haiku. It topped six of eleven benchmark tests over both competitors.

## Why it matters

For teams running AI at high volume — content moderation, translation pipelines, data processing — the cost of frontier models is prohibitive. Flash-Lite sits in the sweet spot: fast enough for real-time use, cheap enough for millions of daily calls, and capable enough to beat the other economy-tier models on most benchmarks.

## Who it's for

High-volume API users, teams running classification/extraction pipelines, developers on a budget.

## Try it

ai.google.dev/gemini-api (preview via AI Studio or Vertex AI)

## Links

- [Announcement](https://blog.google/innovation-and-ai/models-and-research/gemini-models/gemini-3-1-flash-lite/)
- [SiliconANGLE](https://siliconangle.com/2026/03/03/google-launches-speedy-gemini-3-1-flash-lite-model-preview/)
- [API changelog](https://ai.google.dev/gemini-api/docs/changelog)