What "Nano Banana" Means
"Nano Banana" is Google's viral nickname for its Gemini image models. There are three current members, and knowing which is which saves money:
- Nano Banana (original) =
gemini-2.5-flash-image— the cheapest, ~$0.039/image (1024px). Fast text-to-image, conversational editing, multi-image composition. - Nano Banana 2 =
gemini-3.1-flash-image-preview— the newer fast tier, ~$0.045–0.15 (512–4K). - Nano Banana Pro =
gemini-3-pro-image-preview— the flagship, $0.134 (1K/2K), Search grounding, ~94% text, 4K.
All are on LinkModel under one key, up to 30% below official.
Pricing
| Model | ~Per image |
|---|---|
| Nano Banana (original) | ~$0.039 (1024px) |
| Nano Banana 2 | ~$0.045 (512) / $0.067 (1K) / $0.15 (4K) |
| Nano Banana Pro | $0.134 (1K/2K) / $0.24 (4K) |
Batch mode halves these. All embed SynthID watermarks (Nano Banana 2 adds C2PA).
Which Nano Banana to Use
- High-volume / cheapest → the original (
gemini-2.5-flash-image) or Nano Banana 2 for a quality bump. - Fast interactive apps, live editing → Nano Banana 2 (latency-optimized, half Pro's cost). See Nano Banana 2 vs Pro.
- Hero images, grounded/factual visuals, dense text, 4K → Nano Banana Pro. See Nano Banana Pro vs GPT Image 2.
Strengths
The Nano Banana family excels at fast text-to-image, conversational (multi-turn) editing, multi-image composition, and character consistency. Pro adds Search grounding (real facts/geometry) and top-tier text rendering. Common uses: social content, product images, thumbnails, and interactive editors.
How to Use It
# swap the model string across the three tiers
curl -X POST https://api.linkmodel.ai/api/v1/image-generation \
-H "Authorization: Bearer $LINKMODEL_API_KEY" -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{ "model": "gemini-3.1-flash-image-preview", "prompt": "A cozy cafe interior, warm morning light, photorealistic" }'Submit, get a task_id and the price, poll for the image. Confirm the schema in the docs.
A Common Mix-up
Searching "Nano Banana text to video"? Nano Banana is an image model — it doesn't make video. Use it for the still, then animate with a video model. Details in Nano Banana text to video and image to video API.
Bottom Line
For cheap, fast Google image quality, use the original or Nano Banana 2; for flagship grounded/4K/text work, Nano Banana Pro. Full field in best AI image generation APIs.
Start free with a $1 credit and try all three tiers.