Model · Google

Gemini Nano Banana 2.1

Gemini Nano Banana 2.1 is served by Google through OpenRouter. It provides 66K tokens of context and supports text, vision inputs.

Snapshot 2026-10-10 google/gemini-nano-banana-2.1

Context window

66K tokens

Input / 1M tokens

$1.50

Output / 1M tokens

$7.50

Key facts

Provider	Google
OpenRouter ID	`google/gemini-nano-banana-2.1`
Modalities	Text, Vision
Best for	Multimodal

Source openrouter.ai/api/v1/models Verified 2026-10-10 Drift-checked daily 06:00 CST

Best-fit workloads

Best multimodal

Handles images, files, audio or video inputs.

Cost estimates

These examples use the 2026-10-10 input and output prices. Cache discounts, provider surcharges and tool fees are excluded.

Workload	Input	Output	Estimated cost
Quick test	20,000	5,000	$0.068
Product chat month	500,000	125,000	$1.69
Document batch	5,000,000	1,000,000	$15.00

Strengths

✓ Image generation and editing rather than chat — the catalogue lists image among its outputs
✓ Succeeds Nano Banana 2 and Nano Banana Pro on the Flash tier
✓ Reads text and images, so an edit can be described in words

Limitations

! Image output is billed as output tokens at $7.50 per million
! 65,536-token window, the smallest row in this hub by an order of magnitude
! It is here as a picture model: text output is secondary and the rest of this hub is not comparable to it

OpenRouter API quickstart

Run these examples from your server or edge function. Keep the OpenRouter API key private and do not expose it in browser code.

cURL

curl https://openrouter.ai/api/v1/chat/completions \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $OPENROUTER_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "model": "google/gemini-nano-banana-2.1",
    "messages": [{ "role": "user", "content": "Summarize this document in five bullet points." }],
    "max_tokens": 500
  }'

JavaScript / TypeScript

const response = await fetch("https://openrouter.ai/api/v1/chat/completions", {
  method: "POST",
  headers: {
    Authorization: `Bearer ${process.env.OPENROUTER_API_KEY}`,
    "Content-Type": "application/json",
  },
  body: JSON.stringify({
    model: "google/gemini-nano-banana-2.1",
    messages: [{ role: "user", content: "Summarize this document in five bullet points." }],
    max_tokens: 500,
  }),
});

const data = await response.json();
console.log(data.choices[0].message.content);

How to evaluate Gemini Nano Banana 2.1

Run five real tasks from your product, not generic demo prompts.
Record token usage, latency and output quality.
Estimate cost using your real input/output mix.
Compare it against one model with a similar price and one stronger model.

Compare models View on OpenRouter ↗