Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite vs Gemini 4 Carbon (Medium)
Which is better for the money: Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite by Google or Gemini 4 Carbon (Medium) by Google? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-11-03.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Gemini 4 Carbon (Medium) scores 46.0 points higher (57.7 vs 11.7) but costs 9.0× as much to run the benchmark ($5903 vs $654; flagship vs premium cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Gemini 4 Carbon (Medium) when you need intelligence above 11.7, and Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite when 11.7 is enough.
| Metric | Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite | Gemini 4 Carbon (Medium) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 11.7 | 57.7 | +393.2% Gemini 4 Carbon (Medi… is 4.9× more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $653.82 | $5,903.03 | +802.9% Gemini 4 Carbon (Medi… is 9.0× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 7.95s | 11.62s | +46.2% Gemini 4 Carbon (Medi… is 46.2% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.30 / $2.50 | $4.00 / $20.0 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image, Speech, Video | Text, Image, Speech, Video |
Gemini 4 Carbon (Medium) vs Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite: 393.2% more intelligence, 802.9% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 46.2% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (High) scores 50.20 for $573.
- Gemini 4 Carbon (Medium) is on today's frontier: nothing is both smarter and cheaper.
Gemini 3.5 Flash-LiteGemini 4 Carbon (Medium)Today's Pareto frontierEvery other model
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