Google Pulls Gemini Flash and Pro From Free Users

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Anyone using Gemini for free will have to make do with the budget version starting tomorrow: Google is cutting off free accounts from its Flash and Pro models. What remains is Flash-Lite, which Google calls the most cost-efficient model in the family. Paying customers on the cheapest plan lose something, too. The changes are spelled out on a new Google help page and apply to the Gemini app and website for personal accounts.

Who Loses What

The new lineup by plan:

• No subscription: Flash-Lite only. Flash and Pro are gone. According to 9to5Google, the model is Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite.
• Google AI Plus ($4.99, or about €4.45, a month in the U.S.): Flash-Lite and Flash stay, Pro goes. Subscribers will learn the exact date by email.
• Google AI Pro ($19.99, or about €17.80, a month in the U.S.): keeps all three models and also gets Deep Think, the mode for especially thorough reasoning that was previously reserved for the most expensive plan.
• Google AI Ultra: keeps every model and is set to get early access to Gemini 4 Argon once it becomes publicly available.

There is also a new effort setting: For every model, users can choose low, medium or high. More effort produces more thorough answers but eats up far more of the usage limit. Since May, Google has calculated those limits based on computing effort, and they refresh every five hours up to a weekly cap.

No Explanation Given

Google has not said why it is trimming the free version. The direction is clear, though: Anyone who asks more than simple questions is supposed to pay, ideally for the Pro plan. The change stings most for Plus customers, since access to Pro was the strongest argument for the entry-level plan. According to Notebookcheck, it is still unclear whether existing chats will switch to Flash-Lite automatically. Some of Google’s general plan pages also still show the old offering.

Top-tier models are expensive for Google to run: Gemini 4 competes at the very top, and operating models like that takes enormous computing power. Google is not alone in tightening the belt. OpenAI recently halved the allowance of ChatGPT Pro without lowering the price.

OpenAI Goes the Other Way

The timing is striking. Just one day before Google moves its free users to Flash-Lite, OpenAI is opening its new GPT-6 model to the free version of ChatGPT as well, albeit in the smaller Luna variant. Whether Google’s move pushes customers into subscriptions or drives them to the competition remains to be seen.