Google: Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite API

gemini-3.5-flash-lite

Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite API minimizes input cost while retaining text, image, file, audio, and video support across a 1.05M context. It is aimed at broad first-pass processing rather than the highest logic score. ^[1]

Its high-reasoning row ranks #24 with a 22.82 median and 30.23 best score. The 188-second measured time is close to Gemini 3.5 Flash high, but the median is substantially lower. ^[1][2]

MODALITIES

Price$0.15 / $1.25 / 1MCONTEXT1.0486M

import OpenAI from "openai";

const client = new OpenAI({
  apiKey: process.env.API_NEED_API_KEY,
  baseURL: "https://apineed.com/v1"
});

const result = await client.chat.completions.create({
  model: "gemini-3.5-flash-lite",
  messages: [
    { role: "user", content: "Why is the sky blue?" }
  ]
});

console.log(result.choices[0].message.content);

Playground

Test Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite API with representative production prompts before using gemini-3.5-flash-lite in a live workflow.

Providers

OpenRouter lists Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite API with text, image, video, file, and audio input, text output, and a 1.048576M context window. APINEED routing and prepaid rates are identified separately. ^[1]

API Need50% off

Uptime

Total Context

1.0486M

Max Output

65.536K

Input

$0.15/ 1M

Output

$1.25/ 1M

Cache Read

$0.015/ 1M

Cache Write

Route priced

Discount

The 50% APINEED discount changes official rates of $0.30 input, $2.50 output, and $0.03 cache read to $0.15, $1.25, and $0.015. The table compares official Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite API pricing with the APINEED prepaid rate.

Official

Provider baseline

Input $0.3/ 1MOutput $2.5/ 1M

Baseline

APINEED50% off

Prepaid credits

Input $0.15/ 1MOutput $1.25/ 1M

Availability

APINEED continuously monitors Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite API access and keeps requests on healthy capacity.

System statusLast 90 days

APINEED GATEWAY99.91% uptime

Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite API Benchmarks

Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite high ranks #24. Its result sits below Gemini 3.6 Flash high, clarifying that Lite prioritizes cost rather than equivalent reasoning quality. The complete LLM2014 logic 2026-07 table remains below, with Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite API highlighted when a current row exists. ^[2]


1st	GPT-5.5 (xhigh)	83.80	77.46	7.57%	494s	30,811	$25.51	$29.57
2nd	Kimi-K3 (max)	82.91	74.80	9.78%	1095s	39,912	$16.76	$15.00
3rd	Claude Opus 4.8 (xhigh)	82.62	66.70	19.27%	791s	41,833	$28.86	$24.64
4th	GPT-5.6 Sol (xhigh)	81.94	72.99	10.92%	369s	17,433	$14.43	$29.57
5th	Claude Opus 5 (xhigh)	78.38	71.88	8.29%	426s	26,392	$18.21	$24.64
6th	Qwen3.7-Max (xhigh)	74.56	66.95	10.21%	374s	54,207	$7.81	$5.14
7th	GLM-5.2 (max)	73.68	58.27	20.91%	890s	45,683	$5.12	$4.00
8th	Gemini 3.1 Pro (high)	73.36	58.46	20.31%	214s	25,905	$8.58	$11.83
9th	GPT-5.6 Luna (xhigh)	69.49	51.97	25.21%	242s	38,083	$6.31	$5.91
10th	DeepSeek V4 Pro (max)	68.00	49.97	26.51%	1468s	60,558	$1.45	$0.86
11th	Grok 4.5 (high)	67.59	56.72	16.08%	451s	43,372	$7.18	$5.91
12th	Muse Spark 1.1	66.18	57.23	13.52%	542s	42,416	$4.98	$4.19
13th	Gemini 3.5 Flash (high)	65.92	60.39	8.39%	188s	36,372	$9.03	$8.87
14th	Doubao-Seed-2.1-pro (high)	58.69	49.35	15.91%	2003s	85,059	$10.21	$4.29
15th	Qwen3.7-Plus (high)	58.50	44.09	24.63%	1237s	57,152	$1.83	$1.14
16th	Gemini 3.6 Flash (high)	56.87	41.74	26.6%	206s	26,329	$5.45	$7.39
17th	Tencent Hy3 (high)	54.42	44.60	18.04%	1035s	52,037	$0.83	$0.57
18th	Claude Sonnet 5 (xhigh)	51.37	43.14	16.02%	529s	44,118	$12.18	$9.86
19th	DeepSeek V4 Flash (max)	50.62	36.24	28.41%	611s	49,593	$0.40	$0.29
20th	MiniMax-M3	49.18	40.94	16.75%	985s	56,467	$1.90	$1.20
21st	Claude Opus 5	42.08	31.73	24.6%	154s	10,180	$7.02	$24.64
22nd	Claude Opus 4.6	36.88	25.79	30.07%	65s	4,387	$3.03	$24.64
23rd	Doubao-Seed-2.0-lite 0428 (high)	35.32	26.77	24.21%	656s	26,726	$0.38	$0.51
24th	Gemini 3.5 Flash (minimal)	33.24	22.22	33.15%	44s	6,189	$1.54	$8.87
25th	Ling-3.0-flash	32.53	20.62	36.61%	688s	86,204	$0.00	$0.00
26th	Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite (high)	30.23	22.82	24.51%	188s	18,297	$1.26	$2.46
27th	GPT-5.5 Instant	28.87	17.66	38.83%	25s	1,673	$1.39	$29.57
28th	Gemma 4 31B	27.91	22.04	21.03%	770s	15,050	$0.17	$0.39
29th	MiMo-V2.5-Pro	26.91	13.00	51.69%	478s	29,443	$0.71	$0.86
30th	Qwen3.7-Plus	26.19	16.23	38.03%	314s	8,692	$0.28	$1.14
31st	Step-3.7-Flash	26.18	13.74	47.52%	258s	44,912	$1.46	$1.16
32nd	Qwen3.5-27B	24.96	17.98	27.96%	451s	26,391	$0.51	$0.69
33rd	Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite (high)	23.78	14.30	39.87%	82s	28,351	$1.17	$1.48
34th	Claude Sonnet 5	23.64	10.86	54.06%	109s	5,962	$1.65	$9.86
35th	Qwen3.7-Max	22.45	18.53	17.46%	196s	6,710	$0.97	$5.14
36th	ERNIE 5.1	20.49	15.49	24.4%	457s	24,093	$1.73	$2.57
37th	openPangu-2.0-Flash	19.83	10.76	45.74%	571s	28,199	$0.18	$0.23
38th	LongCat-2.0	19.40	9.74	49.79%	395s	14,886	$0.48	$1.14
39th	DeepSeek V4 Flash	19.39	13.37	31.05%	63s	5,286	$0.04	$0.29
40th	Mistral Medium 3.5	18.44	13.87	24.78%	194s	27,854	$5.77	$7.39
41st	Doubao-Seed-2.1-pro	17.49	9.74	44.31%	305s	6,009	$0.72	$4.29
42nd	GLM-5.2	14.80	10.43	29.53%	23s	953	$0.11	$4.00
43rd	Ling-2.6-1T	13.05	8.39	35.71%	229s	4,770	$0.31	$2.29
44th	iFLYTEK Spark X2	12.39	6.21	49.88%	458s	11,285	$0.09	$0.29
45th	Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite	11.79	10.28	12.81%	9s	773	$0.03	$1.48
46th	Mistral Medium 3.5	10.83	7.13	34.16%	17s	2,546	$0.53	$7.39
47th	Ling-2.6-flash	10.07	4.85	51.84%	25s	4,997	$0.04	$0.30

Quick Start

Connect Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite API without changing the OpenAI-style request shape. Use it for extraction, classification, media triage, and routing before escalating difficult cases. Structured outputs make its low input rate useful in repeatable pipelines.

Get your API key

Create an APINEED key for Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite API and keep it in an environment variable.

export API_NEED_API_KEY=sk-apineed-v1-...

Make your first request

Use gemini-3.5-flash-lite for Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite API with the APINEED API. The request shape is compatible with OpenAI chat completions, so most SDKs only need a base URL change.

TypeScript SDKPythoncURLOpenAI SDK

import OpenAI from "openai";

const client = new OpenAI({
  apiKey: process.env.API_NEED_API_KEY,
  baseURL: "https://apineed.com/v1"
});

const result = await client.chat.completions.create({
  model: "gemini-3.5-flash-lite",
  messages: [
    { role: "user", content: "Why is the sky blue?" }
  ]
});

console.log(result.choices[0].message.content);

Enable streaming and fallbacks

Add stream: true when Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite API should return server-sent events. APINEED keeps routing, provider health, and fallback handling behind the same endpoint.

curl https://apineed.com/v1/chat/completions \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $API_NEED_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "model": "gemini-3.5-flash-lite",
    "stream": true,
    "messages": [{ "role": "user", "content": "Hello" }]
  }'

Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite API Endpoint

Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite API accepts chat conversations here with streaming or non-streaming text output; the supported controls are listed on this page.

POST/v1/chat/completions

Authorization: Bearer $API_NEED_API_KEY
Content-Type: application/json
HTTP-Referer: optional - your site URL, for rankings
X-Title: optional - your site name, for rankings
Model: gemini-3.5-flash-lite

Parameters

Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite API parameters currently listed for gemini-3.5-flash-lite by the OpenRouter Models API. ^[1]

Name	Type	Status	Description
`include_reasoning`	boolean	Supported	Includes reasoning content in the response when available.
`max_tokens`	integer	Supported	Limits generated output tokens.
`reasoning`	object	Supported	Controls reasoning behavior and token allocation.
`reasoning_effort`	enum	Supported	Selects the model reasoning effort.
`response_format`	object	Supported	Requests a specific response format.
`seed`	integer	Supported	Requests deterministic sampling when supported by the provider.
`stop`	string or array	Supported	Stops generation at the supplied sequence.
`structured_outputs`	boolean	Supported	Enables schema-constrained structured output.
`temperature`	number	Supported	Controls sampling randomness.
`tool_choice`	string or object	Supported	Controls which tool the model may call.
`tools`	array	Supported	Defines tools available to the model.
`top_p`	number	Supported	Controls nucleus sampling.

Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite API Q&A

Model-specific answers for teams comparing Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite API on capability, benchmark evidence, integration, and cost.

What makes Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite API economical?

Its APINEED input rate is $0.15 per million tokens and cache reads cost $0.015 after the 50% discount.

Can Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite API process video and audio?

Yes. Text, image, file, audio, and video are listed input modalities, with text output.

Where does Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite API rank?

The high configuration ranks #24 with a 22.82 median in the current logic dataset.

Which workloads fit Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite?

For Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite API, high-volume extraction, tagging, summarization, and multimodal routing are stronger fits than the most difficult reasoning tasks.

Which endpoint serves Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite API?

Call Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite API through https://apineed.com/v1/chat/completions with gemini-3.5-flash-lite as the model value. Existing OpenAI SDK clients usually need only the APINEED base URL and key.

How do I validate Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite API before release?

Evaluate Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite API on representative prompts, record quality, latency, and token use, then choose reasoning settings and fallbacks from those results.

How to Deploy the Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite API on apineed.com

Deploy Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite API through APINEED after validating its model-specific trade-offs above. The API key, credit, and endpoint flow stays consistent across the catalog.

Add credits for Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite API

Add credits on APINEED before deploying the Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite API. Pay-as-you-go billing lets usage start small and scale with production traffic.

Get your API key

Create an APINEED API key for the Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite API. The same key can call Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite and other AI APIs through apineed.com.

Set the model slug

Use gemini-3.5-flash-lite as the model value when you deploy the Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite API. Keep the APINEED base URL at https://apineed.com/v1.

Send a request to Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite API

Send chat completions or responses to the Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite API from Claude Code, Codex, or any custom agent. The request keeps its OpenAI-compatible shape.

More models from Google

Gemini 3.6 Flashgoogle/gemini-3.6-flash Gemini 3.5 Flashgoogle/gemini-3.5-flash Gemini 3.1 Pro Previewgoogle/gemini-3.1-pro-preview Gemini 3 Flash Previewgoogle/gemini-3-flash-preview