Nano Banana 2.1 search grounding: 5,000 free, then $14 per 1,000

Nano Banana 2.1 grounding costs nothing for the first 5,000 search requests a month and $14 per 1,000 after that, on Google's pricing page. The 5,000 is shared across all Gemini 3.x models on the project, so another model's traffic can use it up. The charge is for each search query the model makes, not for each API call.

How the bill adds up

Google's footnote says one request "may result in one or more queries to Google Search", and you pay for each query performed. Text and image results the model retrieves are not charged as input tokens. So the image price you saw earlier still applies and grounding is a separate line.

What changed with 2.1

Google's image guide says Nano Banana 2.1 and Gemini 3.1 Flash Image add Image Search grounding next to web search, and that the Lite model does not support grounding at all. When you use Image Search, the guide says you must display the source attribution, and the API returns inline citations for grounded responses.

Turn grounding on only when the prompt depends on facts that change, such as a current product, a recent event or a landmark. A stylized poster of an invented object gains nothing from it.

Grounding through Sume

Sume's Image API docs list the parameters a model accepts, and a parameter that is not listed is refused with 400 unsupported_parameter. I found no search grounding field in the image parameters, so you cannot ask Sume's Nano Banana 2.1 to search. The usual workaround is to fetch the reference yourself and send it as an input_references image.

If grounded generation is the reason you chose the model, call Google directly for those requests.