Last updated: September 3, 2026

Trace Models & Costs.

A one-hour meeting costs about USD 0.32 with the recommended Transcribe + Flash-Lite combination, or about USD 0.11 with all Flash-Lite for a text draft. Nothing in API charges within Google's free tier.

What does a one-hour meeting cost?

Within Google's free tier USD 0No API charges

All Flash-Lite About USD 0.105NTD 3.2 to 3.5

Flash-Lite transcription + 3.8 Flash notes About USD 0.122NTD 3.7 to 4.0

Transcribe transcription + Flash-Lite notesRecommended About USD 0.321NTD 9.6 to 10.6

Transcribe transcription + 3.8 Flash notes About USD 0.338NTD 10.1 to 11.2

Estimated for a one-hour meeting at Google paid-tier prices. NTD uses about NTD 30 to 33 per USD. Google pricing, free quota, and rate limits change; your Google bill is what counts.

Most people start with a free API key

USD 0Within Google's free tier, all three models are free of API charges. The amounts above apply once you exceed the allowance or enable billing.

Limits follow the project, not the key

Several keys in the same project share one allowance.

Resets daily

Requests per day reset at midnight Pacific time.

Pick up where you left off

Every section and every retry counts as a request. Finished sections are kept, so once your allowance is back, tap Continue transcription to process only what is left.

Use a paid project for sensitive meetings

Content sent on the free tier may be used by Google to improve its products and may be seen by human reviewers. See the Privacy Policy.

Once billing is enabled, the project is charged at paid rates. Google does not publish fixed free-tier numbers; check the Rate Limit page in Google AI Studio. Need a key? See the Gemini API Key Guide.

Which model should you choose?

Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite

Role: Transcription, and meeting notes too
Cost per hour: About USD 0.084 to transcribe, USD 0.021 for notes
Timestamps: Generated by the model and may drift from the real time
Best for: Everyday meetings, long audio, low-cost first drafts

gemini-3.5-flash-lite

Gemini 3.8 Flash

Role: Meeting notes
Cost per hour: About USD 0.038 for notes
Timestamps: Not used for transcription
Best for: Strategy discussions, heavy jargon, complete minutes

gemini-3.8-flash

Gemini 3.5 Transcribe

Role: Transcription
Cost per hour: About USD 0.30, billed by audio duration
Timestamps: Native timing, verified before use, with speaker labels
Best for: Meetings that need precise seeking or speaker separation

gemini-3.5-transcribe

Transcription and notes can use different models. Flash-Lite timestamps are generated by the model, so for precise seeking check a few minutes around the timestamp. Transcribe timing is verified by Trace before it is used for seeking; segments that fail verification are still marked as estimated.

Where does the money go?

Audio input (Transcribe) USD 0.18About USD 0.003 / minute

Transcript output (Transcribe) USD 0.12About USD 0.002 / minute

Meeting notes (Flash-Lite) USD 0.02120,000 / 6,000 tokens

One hour with the recommended combination, about USD 0.321 in total. Transcribe is billed by audio duration and makes up more than 90 percent, in exchange for speaker labels and seekable timestamps; Flash-Lite notes add only about USD 0.02.

Longer meetings cost proportionally more

30 minutes About USD 0.161NTD 4.8 to 5.3

60 minutes About USD 0.321NTD 9.6 to 10.6

120 minutes About USD 0.641NTD 19.2 to 21.2

Recommended combination. Transcribe is billed per minute, so cost scales with meeting length.

Other costs: meeting background and review

When importing audio, you can add meeting background such as customer names, products, topics, or common acronyms. Background can help transcription modes that support text prompts recognize names and terms, and can inform the later analysis. Gemini 3.5 Transcribe does not support custom vocabulary alongside timestamps or speaker diarization; in this mode, background informs the later analysis and does not guarantee better name recognition in the native transcript. See Google’s feature compatibility guide.

This context adds a small number of text input tokens, but the cost is usually low. At 2,000 input tokens, 3.5 Flash-Lite input is about USD 0.0006, under NTD 0.02. If it goes into 3.8 Flash analysis, it is about USD 0.0015, around NTD 0.05.

Fact-checking cost: An additional 3.8 Flash pass of about 16,000 input and 3,000 output tokens can add roughly USD 0.023 (NTD 0.7-0.8) for a 1-hour meeting.

Cached audio input on this page is only used to estimate cost range. Trace does not create a backend cache for users. If Google calculates repeated audio references or cache hits differently, use your Google bill and the official pricing page as the source of truth.

Calculation, assumptions, and full tables

How costs are calculated

Gemini audio understanding is commonly estimated by duration: one second of audio is roughly 32 input tokens. One minute is about 1,920 tokens, and one hour is about 115,200 tokens. Trace then uses the transcript, meeting background, and templates to produce meeting notes.

Longer audio may be processed in stages. When the same audio segment is referenced again during the workflow, Google billing may treat it as cached audio input. This page uses that scenario for common estimates and also shows a conservative upper bound when cached input does not apply.

Transcription cost = normal audio input + possible cached audio input + transcript text input + transcript JSON output.

Analysis cost = (full transcript + meeting background / template / analysis instructions) x analysis model input price + meeting-note output tokens x analysis model output price.

Total cost = transcription cost + analysis cost

Cost estimate assumptions

Price basis Google paid tier

3.5 Flash-Lite input (including audio) is USD 0.30 / 1M, cached input USD 0.03 / 1M, and output USD 2.50 / 1M. Through December 31, 2026, 3.8 Flash input is USD 0.75 / 1M, cached input USD 0.075 / 1M, and output USD 3.75 / 1M; Google lists new rates starting in 2027. Gemini 3.5 Transcribe is billed by audio duration, about USD 0.005 / min, rather than tokens.

1 hour of audio About 115,200 tokens

Estimated at 32 audio tokens per second. Longer audio may be processed in segments. Reusing the same audio in the workflow may create cached audio input.

Transcript output About 18,000 tokens

Estimated from a 1-hour meeting with about 36 to 42 minutes of speech, including timestamps, speaker labels, and structured output.

Audio 115,200 tokens

1-hour audio input

Transcript 18,000 tokens

Transcript JSON output

Analysis 20,000 / 6,000

input / output tokens

The meeting-note analysis estimate uses 20,000 input tokens and 6,000 output tokens. Interview-style meetings, fast multi-speaker discussions, or dense transcripts may be higher. Presentations with more silence or shorter output may be lower. The tables below are practical estimates for reading, while your actual bill is determined by Google. NTD conversion uses about NTD 30 to 33 per USD.

1-hour meeting workflow breakdown

The example below uses "3.5 Flash-Lite transcription + 3.8 Flash analysis" with the 3.8 Flash standard rates listed through December 31, 2026. Actual results vary by speaking speed, language, number of speakers, meeting background, template length, output detail, cached input behavior, and Google's latest pricing.

Sample 1-hour workflow estimate, with USD and NTD conversions
Step	Estimated tokens	Calculation	Estimated cost
Audio input	115,200 normal audio + 115,200 cached audio	Reused audio segment estimated with cached audio input.	About USD 0.038 (NTD 1.1-1.3)
Transcript text input	About 4,000 input tokens	Meeting background, time context, and necessary segment context.	About USD 0.001 (under NTD 0.1)
Transcript JSON output	About 18,000 output tokens	Full transcript, timestamps, speaker labels, and JSON structure.	About USD 0.045 (NTD 1.4-1.5)
Meeting-note analysis	About 20,000 input / 6,000 output tokens	Turns transcript, background, template, and analysis instructions into decisions, risks, action items, and formal notes.	About USD 0.038 (NTD 1.1-1.2)
Basic total	1-hour meeting	3.5 Flash-Lite transcription + 3.8 Flash analysis, including cached audio input.	About USD 0.122 (NTD 3.7-4.0)

Cost examples by audio length

Sample workflow estimates, including cached audio input and conservative no-cache upper bounds
Audio length	Transcription flow	Transcript / analysis tokens	With cached audio input	No cached input
30 minutes	Short-audio flow	9,000 transcript output; 11,000 / 3,000 analysis tokens	About USD 0.060 (NTD 1.8-2.0)	About USD 0.060 (NTD 1.8-2.0)
60 minutes	Standard long-audio flow	18,000 transcript output; 20,000 / 6,000 analysis tokens	About USD 0.122 (NTD 3.7-4.0)	About USD 0.153 (NTD 4.6-5.0)
120 minutes	Longer-audio flow	36,000 transcript output; 38,000 / 12,000 analysis tokens	About USD 0.242 (NTD 7.3-8.0)	About USD 0.304 (NTD 9.1-10.0)

1-hour model-combination comparison

Cost differences under the same token assumptions, with USD and NTD conversions
Combination	Usage	Estimated total	Tradeoff
All Flash-Lite	Transcription and analysis both use `gemini-3.5-flash-lite`	About USD 0.105 (NTD 3.2-3.5)	Lowest cost, good for general short meetings or first drafts. Analysis is more conservative.
Sample combination	3.5 Flash-Lite transcription, 3.8 Flash analysis	About USD 0.122 (NTD 3.7-4.0)	Keeps transcription low-cost while using a stronger model for meeting-note organization.
Recommended combination	Transcription uses `gemini-3.5-transcribe` (billed per minute); notes use `gemini-3.5-flash-lite`	About USD 0.321 (NTD 9.6-10.6)	Keeps speaker labels and locatable timestamps while notes use the low-cost model.
3.5 Transcribe transcription + 3.8 Flash analysis	Transcription uses `gemini-3.5-transcribe` (billed per minute); analysis uses `gemini-3.8-flash`	About USD 0.338 (NTD 10.1-11.2)	Highest cost, in exchange for speaker labels and locatable timestamps.