Gemini 3.6 Flash vs Gemini 4 Carbon
Full profiles: Gemini 3.6 Flash (Google) and Gemini 4 Carbon (Google): every benchmark, price and rank.
Updated · Data from 8 sources
As of 29 Oct 2026, Gemini 3.6 Flash and Gemini 4 Carbon are neck and neck on quality (61.3 vs 65.1 on the BenchLeader Index, inside the ±6.8 margin), and Gemini 3.6 Flash is 5.3× cheaper at $1.50 vs $8.00 per 1M tokens blended. Gemini 4 Carbon leads in every category we measure both in. Gemini 3.6 Flash's current price runs until 31 Dec 2026, then $3.00.
Key facts (as of 29 Oct 2026)
- Gemini 3.6 Flash scores 61.3 on the BenchLeader Index and Gemini 4 Carbon scores 65.1 (BenchLeader, 29 Oct 2026).
- Gemini 3.6 Flash costs $1.50 per 1M tokens blended until 31 Dec 2026, then $3.00 (https://ai.google.dev/gemini-api/docs/pricing, checked 20 Oct 2026).
- Gemini 4 Carbon costs $8.00 per 1M tokens blended (list price, 29 Oct 2026).
- Gemini 3.6 Flash streams ~2× faster than Gemini 4 Carbon (Artificial Analysis, 7-day median, 29 Oct 2026).
- Of the 11 benchmarks both models have, Gemini 4 Carbon leads 10 (BenchLeader, 29 Oct 2026).
Gemini 3.6 Flash benchmarks high Google Gemini 4 Carbon benchmarks high GoogleOpen in the comparison toolWhich to pick for…
The pick's numbers come first. Category scores on the BenchLeader scale (50 is the average model, 15 points one standard deviation). High confidence means a lead of half a standard deviation or more; under one point is called either.
| Use case | Pick | Why | Confidence |
|---|---|---|---|
| Coding | Gemini 4 Carbon | 72 vs 57 category score; SciCode 64.2% vs 53.4% | High |
| Reasoning | Gemini 4 Carbon | 79 vs 64 category score; Humanity's Last Exam (AA) 60.4% vs 40.8% | High |
| Knowledge | Gemini 4 Carbon | 76 vs 64 category score | High |
| Long documents | Either | 65 vs 65 category score; AA-LCR v1.1 80.0% vs 79.3% | Either |
| Chat quality (human preference) | – | Only Gemini 3.6 Flash has an Arena rating (68 category score) | Not comparable |
| Lowest cost | Gemini 3.6 Flash | $1.50 vs $8.00 per 1M blended; agentic coding session $0.060 vs $0.320; from 1 Jan 2027: $3.00 vs $8.00 | – |
| Fastest first answer | Gemini 3.6 Flash | 14.0 s (Gemini 3.6 Flash (high)) vs 103.1 s (Gemini 4 Carbon (high)) to the first answer token | – |
| High volume on a budget | Neither flagship | A smaller model is usually the better fit: Cheapest good LLMs, Fastest LLMs | – |
Key differences
- Gemini 3.6 Flash (high) and Gemini 4 Carbon (high) are neck and neck on quality (61.3 vs 65.1, within the ±6.8 margin).
- Gemini 3.6 Flash (high) is stronger in agents & tools, human preference, long context, maths, multimodal.
- Gemini 4 Carbon (high) is stronger in coding, knowledge, reasoning.
- Gemini 3.6 Flash (high) is 5.3× cheaper ($1.50 vs $8.00 per 1M blended) until 31 Dec 2026, then $3.00 vs $8.00 from 1 Jan 2027.
- Gemini 3.6 Flash (high) streams 2.2× faster (215 vs 100 tokens per second).
At a glance
| Spec | Gemini 3.6 Flash | Gemini 4 Carbon |
|---|---|---|
| Developer | ||
| Released | 21 Jul 2026 | 28 Oct 2026 |
| Context window (tokens) | 1,048,576 | 1,000,000 |
| Compared at | Gemini 3.6 Flash (high) | Gemini 4 Carbon (high) |
| Open weights | No | No |
| Price in / out / cached input per 1M | $0.750 / $3.75 / $0.075 | $4.00 / $20.00 / – |
| Announced price change | $1.50 / $7.50 / $0.150 from 1 Jan 2027 | None announced |
Limits, availability and announced prices from the vendors' own pages: ai.google.dev pricing (checked 20 Oct 2026). Everything else is from the day's data.
Category by category
Category scores on the BenchLeader scale: 50 is the average evaluated model, 15 points is one standard deviation. A gap under one point is called level.
| Category | Gemini 3.6 Flash (high) | Gemini 4 Carbon (high) | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Reasoning | 64.0 | 78.9 | Gemini 4 Carbon |
| Coding | 57.0 | 71.7 | Gemini 4 Carbon |
| Agents & tools | 59.3 | – | not comparable |
| Maths | 59.4 | – | not comparable |
| Knowledge | 63.8 | 75.8 | Gemini 4 Carbon |
| Human preference | 67.5 | – | not comparable |
| Multimodal | 65.2 | – | not comparable |
| Long context | 64.8 | 64.5 | level |
Where sources disagree
Across the 11 benchmarks both have, Gemini 3.6 Flash leads 1, Gemini 4 Carbon leads 10.
| Overall index | Gemini 3.6 Flash (high) | Gemini 4 Carbon (high) | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| BenchLeader Index | 61.3 | 65.1 | neck and neck |
Each publisher runs its own tasks, harnesses and effort settings, so their overall verdicts can differ; BenchLeader reconciles them on one scale. † measured at another effort setting of the same model (the publisher did not test the one compared here).
Price, speed and latency
List prices blended at three input tokens per output token. Per-task prices use the token counts on the methodology page; suite cost is what Artificial Analysis paid to run its whole Intelligence Index.
| Measure | Gemini 3.6 Flash (high) | Gemini 4 Carbon (high) |
|---|---|---|
| Blended price per 1M tokens, until 31 Dec 2026 | $1.50 | $8.00 |
| Input / output per 1M | $0.750 / $3.75 | $4.00 / $20.00 |
| Blended price per 1M from 1 Jan 2027 | $3.00 | $8.00 |
| Input / output per 1M from 1 Jan 2027 | $1.50 / $7.50 | $4.00 / $20.00 |
| Cached input per 1M | $0.075 | – |
| Price per task: chat reply | $0.0014 | $0.0076 |
| Price per task: summarize a 30-page report | $0.011 | $0.060 |
| Price per task: code edit | $0.010 | $0.054 |
| Price per task: agentic coding session | $0.060 | $0.320 |
| Price per task: structured extraction | $0.0023 | $0.012 |
| Cost to run a full benchmark suite | – | $7.76 |
| Output speed | 215 tok/s | 100 tok/s |
| Time to first answer | 14.0 s | 103.1 s |
| Time to a complete answer | 16.3 s | 108.1 s |
Each model is compared at its best-ranked reasoning-effort setting. Gemini 3.6 Flash (high) scores 61.3 and takes 14 s to its first answer token; Gemini 3.6 Flash scores 49.5 in 1 s. Gemini 4 Carbon (high) scores 65.1 and takes 103 s to its first answer token. Higher effort means more thinking before the answer: better scores, longer waits and more tokens billed. How reasoning effort changes scores and cost.
Every benchmark
101 benchmarks, grouped by category; each name links to the board and its leaders. † measured at another effort setting of the same model, shown for reference and not counted as a win.
| Metric | Publisher | Gemini 3.6 Flash (high) | Gemini 4 Carbon (high) |
|---|---|---|---|
| BenchLeader Index | BenchLeader | 61.3 | 65.1 |
| Agents & tools score | BenchLeader | 59.3 | – |
| Coding score | BenchLeader | 57.0 | 71.7 |
| Human preference score | BenchLeader | 67.5 | – |
| Knowledge score | BenchLeader | 63.8 | 75.8 |
| Long context score | BenchLeader | 64.8 | 64.5 |
| Maths score | BenchLeader | 59.4 | – |
| Multimodal score | BenchLeader | 65.2 | – |
| Reasoning score | BenchLeader | 64.0 | 78.9 |
| Blended price $/M | BenchLeader | $1.50 | $8.00 |
| Output speed | BenchLeader | 215 tok/s | 100 tok/s |
| Time to first answer | BenchLeader | 14.0 s | 103.1 s |
| Context window | BenchLeader | 1,048,576 tokens | 1,000,000 tokens |
| Reasoning | |||
| GPQA Diamond | Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub | 94.1% | – |
| Arena Hard Prompts | Arena (LMArena) | 1501 | – |
| LiveBench 1.0 Reasoning | LiveBench | 85.2% | – |
| GPQA Diamond (AA) | Artificial Analysis | 92.8% | – |
| Humanity's Last Exam (AA) | Artificial Analysis | 40.8% | 60.4% |
| HLE-Diamond (AA) | Artificial Analysis | – | 69.1% |
| GPQA Diamond (Vals) | Vals AI | 93.4% | – |
| ARC-AGI-1 | ARC Prize | 91.2% | – |
| ARC-AGI-2 | ARC Prize | 60.4% | – |
| CritPt | Artificial Analysis | 10.6% | 36.0% |
| CritPt v2 hard subset (AA) | Artificial Analysis | – | 63.0% |
| Chess Puzzles | Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub | 40.0% | – |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub | 30.0% | – |
| LMCA | Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub | 44.9% | – |
| DTBench | Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub | 95.5% | – |
| ForecastBench | ForecastBench | 65.9%† | – |
| Coding | |||
| SciCode | SciCode | 53.4% | 64.2% |
| WeirdML | WeirdML | 56.1% | – |
| FrontierCode | Cognition | 34.4%† | – |
| Arena Coding | Arena (LMArena) | 1518 | – |
| Arena WebDev | Arena (LMArena) | 1537 | – |
| LiveBench 1.0 Coding | LiveBench | 77.9% | – |
| LiveCodeBench | Vals AI | 88.1% | – |
| IOI | Vals AI | 35.1% | – |
| SWE-bench (Vals) | Vals AI | 79.6% | – |
Show all 101 benchmarks
| Metric | Publisher | Gemini 3.6 Flash (high) | Gemini 4 Carbon (high) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Coding | |||
| Code Migration | Vals AI | 30.9% | – |
| ProgramBench | Vals AI | 0.0% | – |
| Vibe Code Bench v1.1 | Vals AI | 64.0% | 89.1% |
| DeepSWE v1.1 | Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub | 46.7% | – |
| ALE-Bench | Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub | 715.5 | – |
| Terminal-Bench 4.0 (AA) | Artificial Analysis | 7.1% | 65.2% |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 (AA) | Artificial Analysis | 77.5% | – |
| FrontierCode 1.1 (AA) | Artificial Analysis | – | 48.5% |
| FrontierCode 2.0 (AA) | Artificial Analysis | – | 40.6% |
| Agents & tools | |||
| APEX-Agents | Mercor | 46.9%† | – |
| LiveBench Agentic Coding | LiveBench | 43.4% | – |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals) | Vals AI | 73.8% | – |
| τ³-Banking (AA) | Artificial Analysis | 29.9% | – |
| CyberBench | Vals AI | 45.4% | – |
| Finance Agent v2 | Vals AI | 56.3% | – |
| Finance Agent v2.1 | Vals AI | – | 67.2% |
| Harvey's Legal Agent Benchmark v1.1 | Vals AI | – | 17.5% |
| Harvey's Legal Agent Benchmark v1 | Vals AI | 3.3% | – |
| Legal Research Bench | Vals AI | 25.0% | 55.8% |
| Tax Agent Bench | Vals AI | 18.0% | 48.9% |
| Terminal-Bench 4.0 (Vals) | Vals AI | – | 63.1% |
| Terminal-Bench Science | Vals AI | 4.3% | – |
| Vending-Bench 2 | Andon Labs | – | 16484.2† |
| AutomationBench | Artificial Analysis | 53.0% | 77.8% |
| GDP.pdf (AA) | Artificial Analysis | 17.4% | 28.4% |
| AA-Briefcase v1.1 | Artificial Analysis | – | 1609 |
| Terminal-Bench-Science 0.1 (AA) | Artificial Analysis | – | 64.8% |
| FACTS Search | 68.2%† | – | |
| Maths | |||
| FrontierMath Tiers 1–3 | Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub | 59.0% | – |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 | Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub | 21.9% | – |
| OTIS Mock AIME | Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub | 94.2% | – |
| ProofBench | Vals AI | 36.0%† | – |
| LiveBench Mathematics | LiveBench | 86.4% | – |
| AIME 2026 | MathArena | 96.7%† | – |
| HMMT February 2026 | MathArena | 89.4%† | – |
| MathArena Apex | MathArena | 26.0%† | – |
| Arena Maths | Arena (LMArena) | 1504 | – |
| Knowledge | |||
| SimpleQA Verified | Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub | 66.2% | – |
| LiveBench 1.0 Data Analysis | LiveBench | 63.0% | – |
| AA-Omniscience v1.1 | Artificial Analysis | – | 53.5 |
| MMLU-Pro | Vals AI | 89.3% | – |
| LegalBench | Vals AI | 86.7% | – |
| CorpFin | Vals AI | 63.3% | – |
| TaxEval | Vals AI | 74.9% | – |
| BioMysteryBench | Vals AI | 58.5% | – |
| Excel Modeling Benchmark | Vals AI | 65.4% | – |
| Excel Modeling Benchmark v1.1 | Vals AI | – | 76.5% |
| MedCode | Vals AI | 53.1% | – |
| MedScribe | Vals AI | 79.7% | – |
| Public Benefits Bench v1.1 | Vals AI | 56.6% | – |
| GDP.pdf | Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub | 14.0% | – |
| AA-Omniscience v1.1: accuracy | Artificial Analysis | – | 58.3% |
| AA-Omniscience v1.1: non-hallucination | Artificial Analysis | – | 88.6% |
| Instruction following | |||
| LiveBench Language | LiveBench | 83.9% | – |
| LiveBench Instruction Following | LiveBench | 75.4% | – |
| Arena Instruction Following | Arena (LMArena) | 1473 | – |
| Human preference | |||
| Arena Text | Arena (LMArena) | 1483 | – |
| Arena Creative Writing | Arena (LMArena) | 1471 | – |
| Arena Multi-turn | Arena (LMArena) | 1488 | – |
| Arena Longer Queries | Arena (LMArena) | 1485 | – |
| Multimodal | |||
| Arena Vision | Arena (LMArena) | 1299 | – |
| MMMU-Pro | Artificial Analysis | 83.2% | – |
| MMMU-Pro (Vals) | Vals AI | 88.4% | – |
| MortgageTax | Vals AI | 67.6% | – |
| Blueprint-Bench 2 | Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub | 31.2%† | 58.6%† |
| Long context | |||
| AA-LCR v1.1 | Artificial Analysis | 80.0% | 79.3% |
| Arena Document | Arena (LMArena) | 1453 | – |
| MLCR | Artificial Analysis | 10.0% | – |
| Composite | |||
| Epoch Capabilities Index | Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub | 154.5† | – |
| LiveBench 1.0 | LiveBench | 73.6% | – |
| AA Intelligence Index v5.0 | Artificial Analysis | – | 59.4 |
| AA Intelligence Index v4.3.2 | Artificial Analysis | 34.0 | – |
| AA Progress Index v1 | Artificial Analysis | 305.7 | 351.6 |
| Vals Index | Vals AI | – | 70.4 |
| Vals Finance Index | Vals AI | – | 66.3% |
| Vals Multimodal Index | Vals AI | 65.1% | – |
Data as of 2026-10-29. Best configuration of each model; every score links to its source on the model pages.
What changed
- Gemini 3.6 Flash: list price moves to $1.50 / $7.50 per 1M input / output tokens (announced).
- Gemini 3.6 Flash (high): BenchLeader Index 61.8 → 61.3.
- Gemini 3.6 Flash (high): 1 new result (AA Progress Index v1).
- Gemini 3.6 Flash (high): 1 new result (Harvey's Legal Agent Benchmark v1).
- Gemini 3.6 Flash (high): 1 score revision.
- Gemini 3.6 Flash (high): 3 new results (AutomationBench, GDP.pdf (AA), MLCR).
- Gemini 3.6 Flash (high): BenchLeader Index 61.1 → 61.8.
- Gemini 3.6 Flash (high): 1 score revision.
- Gemini 3.6 Flash (high): 1 score revision.
- Gemini 3.6 Flash (high): 1 score revision.
Related comparisons
- Gemini 3.6 Flash vs Claude Opus 5.5
- Gemini 3.6 Flash vs GPT-6 Astra
- Gemini 3.6 Flash vs GPT-6.1 Sol
- Gemini 4 Carbon vs Claude Opus 5.5
- Gemini 4 Carbon vs GPT-6 Astra
- Gemini 4 Carbon vs GPT-6.1 Sol
- Gemini 4 Carbon vs Claude Fable 5.1
- Gemini 3.5 Flash vs Gemini 4 Carbon
Rankings: Best LLM overall · Best LLM for coding · Best LLM for agents · Best cheap LLMs
Gemini 3.6 Flash vs Gemini 4 Carbon: questions
- Is Gemini 3.6 Flash better than Gemini 4 Carbon?
- Gemini 3.6 Flash (high) and Gemini 4 Carbon (high) are neck and neck on quality (61.3 vs 65.1, within the ±6.8 margin). The BenchLeader Index combines every independent quality benchmark; the two are within the margin of error as of 29 Oct 2026, so check the category scores for your use.
- Gemini 3.6 Flash vs Gemini 4 Carbon: which is cheaper, and will that change?
- Gemini 3.6 Flash is cheaper today: $1.50 against $8.00 per million tokens, blended at three input tokens per output token. Gemini 3.6 Flash's current price runs until 31 Dec 2026, then $3.00.
- Is Gemini 3.6 Flash or Gemini 4 Carbon better for coding?
- Gemini 4 Carbon scores higher in coding (72 vs 57 on the category index, where 50 is average). On SciCode, the top shared coding benchmark, it is 53.4% for Gemini 3.6 Flash against 64.2% for Gemini 4 Carbon.
- Which is faster, Gemini 3.6 Flash or Gemini 4 Carbon?
- Gemini 3.6 Flash streams ~2× faster (215 vs 100 output tokens per second, Artificial Analysis 7-day median).
- Which is better for long documents?
- They are level on long-context benchmarks (65 vs 65). Both take about 1M tokens: Gemini 3.6 Flash 1,048,576, Gemini 4 Carbon 1,000,000.
More questions (3)
- Which has lower latency?
- Gemini 3.6 Flash answers first: 14.0 s against 103.1 s to the first answer token, as Artificial Analysis measures it. Reasoning effort drives most of this: a higher setting thinks longer before it answers.
- Do independent benchmarks agree on Gemini 3.6 Flash vs Gemini 4 Carbon?
- Across the 11 benchmarks both have, Gemini 3.6 Flash leads 1, Gemini 4 Carbon leads 10.
- When was Gemini 4 Carbon released?
- Gemini 4 Carbon was released on 28 Oct 2026.