Google Launches Nano Banana 2.1: Better Than Its Predecessor at Half the Price

Google on Tuesday launched Nano Banana 2.1, the latest model of the AI mannequin that turns a typed sentence into an image, or edits a photograph you have already got.

It is rolling out within the Gemini app, Google Search’s AI Mode, Google Adverts and developer instruments together with Google AI Studio, Circulate and Sew.

The unique Nano Banana made Gemini a hit. In September 2025, its trick of turning selfies into collectible collectible figurines pushed Gemini to No. 1 on each main app shops, dethroning ChatGPT after practically three years.

Alphabet’s market worth topped $3 trillion in the identical stretch.

Model 2 arrived in February, constructed on Gemini 3.1 Flash Picture. Its massive trick was checking Google Search earlier than drawing real-world issues, so an image of an precise occasion or particular person had a greater shot at being proper.

So what’s new on this replace? Google factors to 3 upgrades: higher visible design, sharper mask-based modifying (you mark one area and solely that space adjustments), and higher topic consistency, that means an individual or object nonetheless seems like itself after a number of edits.

On general desire in text-to-image checks, Nano Banana 2.1 scored 1,050 ELO Factors. Nano Banana 2 scored 990 and Nano Banana Professional scored 935. Within the ELO system, the extra factors the higher. It doesn’t have a ceiling, so it’s purely qualitative.

On paper, it handles as much as 14 reference pictures directly, monitoring as much as 4 characters and ten objects. It outputs as much as 4K, roughly TV-level sharpness, in codecs as huge as 8:1.

Builders also can set how lengthy it “thinks” earlier than drawing, from minimal to excessive, and let it floor its ends in Google Search and Google Picture Search. In plain phrases, it may look issues up earlier than it attracts them.

By means of Google’s developer API, the pipe that lets different firms’ apps use the mannequin, a normal 1K picture prices $0.0336. That is about half of Nano Banana 2’s $0.067.

A 4K picture runs $0.0756 versus $0.151. Batch jobs, massive piles of pictures processed in bulk as a substitute of immediately, get one other 50% off.

At the usual 1K worth, a thousand pictures now value about $33.60 by means of the API, down from $67 on Nano Banana 2, which makes this mannequin extraordinarily good and in addition very environment friendly and value efficient.