Model index · Text · text generation · standard · open weights · Google · released 2025-03-13

Gemma 3 12B pricing

Served by 4 providers from $0.0625 to $0.0750 per 1M tokens on the standard tier — a 1.2× gap for identical weights.

Gemma 3 introduces multimodality, supporting vision-language input and text outputs. It handles context windows up to 128k tokens, understands over 140 languages, and offers improved math, reasoning, and chat capabilities,...

Google · 12.19B parameters · gemma · first published 2025-03-13 · Text model · text generation · 131k context · description as published by the source, not written by us

Open weights: google/gemma-3-12b-it · 12.19B parameters counted from the weight files · licence gemma · 1.2M downloads in the last 30 days . Parameter count and licence come from the public weights registry, not from a seller — and the download figure exists only for models published this way, so it is not a market-wide popularity measure.

$0.0625

Cheapest standard /1M — Novita

131k

Native context window

6

Providers serving it

Quality not measured yet

Quality not measured yet

We measure models on request rather than pre-scoring the whole catalog, so this one has no score yet. Absence of a score is not a low score.

At 1M requests/month (1500 in / 500 out tokens), moving from DeepInfra to Novita saves about $25/month.

Illustrative traffic shape, stated so you can check it against your own. Same weights both sides — but confirm quantisation and context below before switching.

Every provider and service tier

Standard on-demand rows first, cheapest of each group first. Tiers are not interchangeable — see the note below the table.

Provider In /1M Out /1M Blended /1M Tier Region Source
Novita cheapest standard $0.0500 $0.1000 $0.0625 standard provider_api
DeepInfra $0.0500 $0.1500 $0.0750 standard third_party
OpenRouter (default route) *
resells other hosts
$0.0500 $0.1500 $0.0750 standard provider_api
DeepInfra $0.0500 $0.1500 $0.0750 standard provider_api
DeepInfra $0.0400 $0.1200 $0.0600 flex provider_api
DeepInfra $0.0750 $0.2250 $0.1125 priority provider_api

Not every row is the same product

This table mixes service tiers, and they are not interchangeable. Rows marked standard are ordinary on-demand requests. The others trade delivery for price:

  • flex — queued at lower priority, so latency is higher and requests can be deferred under load
  • priority — reserved capacity for tighter, more predictable latency

Every comparison elsewhere on this site uses the standard tier, so a model is never shown at a queued rate beside another model's on-demand rate.

Cheaper if your workload can wait: flex at $0.0600 per 1M on DeepInfra — 4% below standard , queued at lower priority, so latency is higher and requests can be deferred under load.

* OpenRouter chooses a host for each request, and the figure above is what its default choice costs — not a fixed rate for this model. Selecting a specific host through the same account costs whatever that host charges, which is why this row can sit above or below the hosts listed beside it. Token rates are passed through from the underlying provider with no markup, so the per-1M price above is what that host charges directly — OpenRouter's own charge sits on funding instead: 5.5% (min $0.80) by Stripe or 5% by Coinbase to buy credits, 5% of the equivalent spend if you bring your own provider key. So budget about 5% above the rate shown unless you already hold credit. Fee schedule.

Compare Gemma 3 12B with alternatives

One model per vendor, ordered by how prominent the vendor is and how many independent providers serve the model — hosts only carry what customers ask for, so that is a real demand signal. This is not traffic or popularity data, which we do not have. Every alternative below does the same job — text generation — because a price comparison between a generator and, say, an upscaler is arithmetic rather than advice. Prices on both sides are standard on-demand rates, so the comparison is like for like — a discounted batch or flex rate is never shown against another model’s standard rate.

AlternativeVendor $/1M vs Gemma 3 12B QualityKindContextHosts
Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct Alibaba $0.2015
Alibaba
222% dearer 40/100 standard
open weights
262k 3
Mistral Small 3 Mistral $0.0575
OpenRouter (default route)
8% cheaper 20/100 standard
open weights
33k 3
Command R7B (12-2024) Cohere $0.0656
Cohere
5% dearer 0/100 standard 128k 1
WizardLM-2 8x22B Microsoft $0.4800
DeepInfra
668% dearer 100/100 standard 66k 3
Kimi K2 0905 MoonshotAI $1.00
OpenRouter (default route)
1504% dearer not measured standard 262k 2
Llama 3.1 8B Instruct Meta $0.0250
DeepInfra
60% cheaper not measured standard
open weights
131k 6
DeepSeek V3 0324 DeepSeek $0.4050
DeepInfra
548% dearer not measured standard 164k 4
Hermes 3 70B Instruct Nous $0.7000
DeepInfra
1020% dearer not measured standard
open weights
131k 4

Prices are the cheapest host for each model, blended at a 3:1 input:output ratio. "Quality" is our own probe suite where we have run it — see what it measures. A cheaper alternative is only a real saving if it also passes on the capability your workload needs.

2 of these alternatives cost less than Gemma 3 12B — the cheapest being Llama 3.1 8B Instruct at $0.0250 per 1M tokens blended (60% cheaper).

Cheaper is not automatically better: check the quality column, and confirm the context window and capabilities your workload depends on before switching.

Before you switch

Identical weights do not guarantee identical output. Check that the cheaper host serves the model at full precision rather than a quantised copy, that its context window matches what you need, and that its rate limits carry your peak traffic. A cheaper host that cannot take your throughput is not cheaper — it is an outage.

Move to Novita without a rewrite

VernaOne fronts every provider on this page with one API, so switching host is a config change — with automatic fallback if quality or latency regresses.

Try VernaOne free →

Frequently asked

How much does Gemma 3 12B cost?

The cheapest standard-tier provider is Novita at $0.0625 per 1M tokens blended (3:1 input:output). A flex tier is available at $0.0600, 4% less, if the work can be queued. Prices change often; verify with the provider before budgeting.

Which provider is best for Gemma 3 12B?

Cheapest is not automatically best. Compare quantisation (a lossy copy of the weights changes output), the context window each host actually serves, and rate limits. Where a provider serves less context than the model's native window we flag it in the table above.

Can I switch providers for Gemma 3 12B without changing code?

Yes, if you route through an abstraction. VernaOne exposes one API across every provider listed here, so switching host is a config change and you keep automatic fallback if the new one degrades.

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