Google widens Gemini 4 Argon access at half its December API price
The frontier model leaves a restricted early-access phase for paid developer, business and subscriber channels, on an introductory rate that runs to the end of November
- Standard API price from 1 December: $4 (£3.02) per million input tokens and $20 (£15.08) per million output tokens
- Cached input tokens: charged at 95% off
- Gemini API limit: 1 million tokens of combined input and output
- Vals Index score: 68.90% as of 12 October, according to Vals AI as reported by VentureBeat
- Fairwind Program: access expanding to hundreds of additional partners
Cost estimates drawn from pilots run before December will understate the bill for the same workload once standard pricing applies. Professional-services buyers comparing frontier models now have a Google option alongside the existing suppliers for legal, tax and finance work. Because Argon also arrives inside Gemini for business and the consumer AI Pro and Ultra plans, staff may reach it through subscriptions an organization already pays for, outside any API budget or new supplier contract.
“Argon excels at deep work in complex, real-world tasks across domains including coding, finance, legal, cybersecurity, and science.”Koray Kavukcuoglu, senior vice-president, Google DeepMind and chief AI architect, Google
Google made Gemini 4 Argon, its newest frontier AI model, available globally on 13 October at an introductory API price of $2 (£1.51) per million input tokens and $10 (£7.54) per million output tokens. Both rates double on 1 December.
Tokens are the small chunks of text a model reads and writes. Companies that build a model into their own software or workflows through an API pay for every million of them, so the price per token sets the running cost of each automated task.
The release comes 13 days after Google unveiled Argon on 30 September, when access was restricted to approved cybersecurity defenders in its Fairwind Program, as reported by VentureBeat. Google said enterprise customers and startups in an early access program had also been using the model.
Developers now reach Argon through the paid tier of the Gemini API in AI Studio. Businesses can use it in Gemini for business, through the API and in Google Antigravity, and Google AI Pro and Ultra subscribers get it in the Gemini app and AI Mode in Search.
Google said Argon ranks first on the Vals Index, which scores models on finance, coding, legal and tax work. Among its examples of business use, Google said Isomorphic Labs uses the model to pull information from complex PDFs and patents, cutting work that typically takes weeks to hours.
Sources
- Google, “Gemini 4 Argon: Built to solve your hardest problems”, blog post by Koray Kavukcuoglu, 13 October 2026. https://blog.google/innovation-and-ai/models-and-research/gemini-models/introducing-gemini-4-argon/
- VentureBeat, “Google makes Gemini 4 Argon broadly available with limited-time low API pricing of $2/$10 per 1M token”, Carl Franzen, 13 October 2026. https://venturebeat.com/technology/google-makes-gemini-4-argon-broadly-available-with-limited-time-low-api-pricing-of-2-10-per-1m-token
- European Central Bank, euro reference exchange rates (USD 1.1195, GBP 0.84385 per euro), 14 October 2026. https://data-api.ecb.europa.eu/service/data/EXR/D.USD+GBP.EUR.SP00.A?startPeriod=2026-10-14&endPeriod=2026-10-14&format=csvdata
