Gemini 4 Hydrogen vs Argon vs Carbon
Hydrogen’s paid-tier list price is $1.50 / $7.50 per 1M input/output tokens, flat, with a free API tier and an xhigh thinking level. Carbon and Argon are $2.00 / $10.00 through 30 November 2026 and $4.00 / $20.00 from 1 December 2026, with no free tier and no xhigh in the docs we read. Google reports Artificial Analysis Index 51 for Hydrogen at default high (54 at xhigh) versus 50 for Argon.
Prices and free-tier notes are from the Gemini Developer API pricing page and the Carbon / Argon “what’s new” docs, retrieved 13 November 2026. The Artificial Analysis figures are Google’s wording from the Hydrogen announcement blog, not a table this site ran. Source: Google AI Studio / Gemini API docs, Retrieved 13 November 2026 · Source: Google AI Studio / Gemini API docs, Retrieved 13 November 2026 · Source: Google AI Studio / Gemini API docs, Retrieved 13 November 2026 · Source: Google AI Studio / Gemini API docs, Retrieved 13 November 2026 · Source: Google Blog, 12 November 2026
Official Gemini 4 family list prices and documented options, retrieved 13 November 2026.
| Hydrogen | Argon | Carbon |
|---|
| Input / 1M (paid) | $1.50 flat | $2.00 through 30 Nov 2026; $4.00 from 1 Dec 2026 | $2.00 through 30 Nov 2026; $4.00 from 1 Dec 2026 |
|---|
| Output / 1M (paid) | $7.50 flat | $10.00 through 30 Nov 2026; $20.00 from 1 Dec 2026 | $10.00 through 30 Nov 2026; $20.00 from 1 Dec 2026 |
|---|
| Cache read / 1M | $0.075 implicit only | $0.10 through 30 Nov 2026; $0.20 from 1 Dec 2026, implicit only | $0.10 through 30 Nov 2026; $0.20 from 1 Dec 2026, implicit only |
|---|
| Free tier (API / AI Studio) | Free of charge, rate-limited | Not available | Not available |
|---|
| Thinking levels | low, medium, high (default), xhigh | low, medium, high (default medium); no xhigh listed | low, medium, high (default medium); no xhigh listed |
|---|
Google’s published comparison on one index
The Hydrogen announcement blog says Hydrogen “surpasses Argon on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index at its default high thinking level (51 vs. 50, and reaching 54 at its highest xhigh thinking setting).” The blog does not give a Carbon score on that same index in the passage we copied, so we do not invent one.
Which model to pick, only where official specs decide it
- If you need the Gemini API free tier, official docs list it for Hydrogen and not for Carbon or Argon.
- If you need the xhigh thinking level, Hydrogen’s docs add it; the Carbon and Argon pages we read list low, medium, and high only.
- If list price is the constraint, Hydrogen stays $1.50 / $7.50. Even during the Carbon / Argon introductory window through 30 November 2026, their listed $2.00 / $10.00 is higher than Hydrogen; from 1 December 2026 those rates become $4.00 / $20.00.
- We do not rank “smarter” beyond the official figures above. Carbon is described by Google as the most capable reasoning model in this family; that is Google’s product language, not a score from this site.
Related: Hydrogen vs 3.8 Flash · published scores · full comparison.
Speed, tokens per second and cost per task
At its default high level, Hydrogen measured 171 output tokens/s and 8.3 minutes per Artificial Analysis Index task; the fastest level of the other models here measured 66 tok/s, so Hydrogen streamed about 2.6× as fast in AA’s runs.
Measured independently by Artificial Analysis on each vendor's own API (retrieved 14 November 2026); speed is averaged over the past 5 days and changes. A dash means AA had not published that figure. This site did not run these tests.| Model · thinking/effort level | AA Intelligence Index | Output speed (tok/s) | Minutes per AA Index task | Time to first answer token (s) |
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| Gemini 4 Hydrogen · xhigh | 54 | 178 | 14.5 | 44.79 |
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| Gemini 4 Hydrogen · high | 51 | 171 | 8.3 | 17.37 |
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| Gemini 4 Hydrogen · medium | 41 | 174 | 3.8 | 11.81 |
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| Gemini 4 Hydrogen · low | 27 | 173 | 1.4 | 5.58 |
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| Gemini 4 Argon · high | 50 | 66 | 29.2 | 44.99 |
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| Gemini 4 Argon · medium | 48 | 56 | 29.9 | 6.34 |
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| Gemini 4 Carbon · high | 60 | 66 | 30.9 | 70.53 |
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| Gemini 4 Carbon · medium | 58 | 61 | 27.9 | 22.18 |
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| Gemini 4 Carbon · low | 54 | 51 | 28.0 | 13.89 |
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The task-cost columns are our arithmetic on official list prices, assuming every model uses the same token counts — they do not (see output volume below), and Anthropic says its newer tokenizer produces about 30% more tokens for the same text. No cache, batch, or grounding fees. The last column is Artificial Analysis’s own measured average, at the prices AA used, for the variant named in brackets.| Model | Official list price (input / output per 1M) | Our arithmetic per task (50K in + 8K out) | ×1,000 tasks | AA measured cost per Index task |
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| Gemini 4 Hydrogen | $1.50 / $7.50 flat | $0.135 | $135 | $3.16 (xhigh) |
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| Gemini 4 Argon | $2 / $10 through 30 Nov 2026; $4 / $20 from 1 Dec 2026 | $0.180 (to 30 Nov 2026)
$0.360 (from 1 Dec 2026) | $180
$360 | $4.97 (high) |
|---|
| Gemini 4 Carbon | $2 / $10 through 30 Nov 2026; $4 / $20 from 1 Dec 2026 | $0.180 (to 30 Nov 2026)
$0.360 (from 1 Dec 2026) | $180
$360 | $5.48 (high) |
|---|
Output tokens Artificial Analysis recorded while running its whole Intelligence Index (more tokens = more cost and time for the same work): Gemini 4 Hydrogen: xhigh 304M, high 110M, medium 54.4M, low 20.3M; Gemini 4 Argon: high 113M, medium 81.7M; Gemini 4 Carbon: high 205M, medium 124M, low 83.9M.
Source: Artificial Analysis: Gemini 4 Hydrogen · Artificial Analysis: Gemini 4 Argon · Artificial Analysis: Gemini 4 Carbon (retrieved 14 November 2026) · Source: Google AI Studio / Gemini API docs, Retrieved 13 November 2026
Plug in your own token counts: Hydrogen cost calculator · all comparisons.
