Cheap128K contextGoogle

Google: Gemma 3 27B

Gemma 3 27B sits in the cheap tier, and the pricing is hard to ignore: 100 short chats cost about $0.01, a long PDF Q&A costs $0.01, and 1,000 coding completions run about $0.08. That makes it a practical pick for everyday analysis, document work, and lightweight agent tasks. The non-obvious part: for many teams, the free variant is enough to test real workloads before you spend anything.

Best for

  • Reading long documents, pulling out answers, and keeping costs near zero.
  • Vision-language tasks where you want image understanding without moving to a pricier model tier.
  • High-volume coding, chat, or agent workflows where token cost matters more than brand prestige.

Not ideal for

  • Teams that need access through an existing bundled subscription, because none are listed in our catalog.
  • Buyers who want the safest choice for top-end frontier performance rather than cheap, capable throughput.

What it costs in real life

Computed from OpenRouter API pricing ($0.08 input / $0.16 output per 1M tokens)

100 short chats(50K in / 30K out)
$0.01Cheap
1 long PDF + questions(80K in / 5K out)
$0.01Cheap
1,000 coding completions(200K in / 400K out)
$0.08Cheap
Agent workflow (50 steps)(50K in / 25K out)
$0.01Cheap

Variants

NameContextInput/1MOutput/1M
Google: Gemma 3 27B (free)Free128K$0.00$0.00
Google: Gemma 3 27B128K$0.08$0.16

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Google: Gemma 3 27B worth it for everyday work?

Yes, if you care about cost efficiency and need a model that can handle documents, coding, reasoning, and image input. The pricing is low enough that you can run routine workloads without treating every prompt like a budget decision.

How much does Google: Gemma 3 27B API cost?

The paid version is priced at $0.08 per 1M input tokens and $0.16 per 1M output tokens. In practice, that works out to about $0.01 for 100 short chats, $0.01 for a long PDF plus questions, and $0.08 for 1,000 coding completions.

Should I use Google: Gemma 3 27B or pay for a bigger model?

Use Gemma 3 27B when you want strong enough performance at very low cost, especially for repeated workflows and internal tools. Pay for a bigger model when your work is sensitive to small quality gains and you are optimizing for best-possible output rather than cheap volume.

Capabilities

Vision
Tool calling
Structured output
Reasoning
Open weights
Long context

Cheapest access path

The cheapest way in is the free Gemma 3 27B variant at $0.00 input and $0.00 output per 1M tokens. If you need API billing, the paid version is still inexpensive: around $0.01 for a long PDF plus questions or a 50-step agent workflow, and about $0.08 for 1,000 coding completions; StackTrim AI can help you check whether that low API cost still overlaps with tools you already pay for.

cheapvisionreasoningstructured output128K contextmultilingual