Source-tracked model comparison

Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite vs Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite: what changes in support-triage cost?

Compare verified pricing and model limits for upgrading a Gemini Flash-Lite support-routing workload. The cost example uses a support ticket triage workload and does not assume equal model quality.

Direct cost answer: Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite is estimated at $52.38 per month and Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite at $162.19 for 1,500 input tokens, 250 output tokens, and 250,000 monthly requests. Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite is $109.81 lower under these assumptions. This does not identify a quality winner.
Generation changeSupport ticket triageSources checked 2026-07-12 / 2026-07-14
Tracked facts

Pricing and model limits

Prices are USD per 1M tokens under each model's verified default profile.

FieldGemini 2.5 Flash-LiteGemini 3.1 Flash-Lite
ProviderGoogleGoogle
API model IDgemini-2.5-flash-litegemini-3.1-flash-lite
Input / 1M$0.10$0.25
Cached input / 1M$0.01$0.025
Output / 1M$0.40$1.50
Context window1,048,576 tokens1,048,576 tokens
Maximum output65,536 tokens65,536 tokens
Accepted inputtext, image, video, audio, pdftext, image, audio
Example workload

Support ticket triage cost scenario

1,500 input and 250 output tokens per request, 250,000 monthly requests, and 30% cached input.

Google

Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite

$52.38 / month
Input cost
$27.38
Output cost
$25.00
Per 1,000 calls
$0.2095
Pricing profile
standard / text
View model details
Google

Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite

$162.19 / month
Input cost
$68.44
Output cost
$93.75
Per 1,000 calls
$0.6488
Pricing profile
standard
View model details

Cost result: Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite is $109.81 lower per month for these assumptions. This is a price comparison, not a model-quality ranking.

StackLens assessment

Questions to answer before choosing

  • Does the newer model improve difficult routing cases?
  • Can the existing prompt and integration remain unchanged?
  • How does escalation rate affect the measured cost difference?
Workload caveat

What this estimate leaves out

This estimate covers generation tokens only and does not assume equal routing accuracy between models.

Latency, reliability, output quality, retries, regional processing, and provider-specific tool charges can change the practical decision.