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Gemini API image tokenization costs explained

Google's Gemini API tokenizes images by breaking them down into visual patches, with the cost dependent on image resolution. Images up to 384x384 pixels are treated as a single patch, costing 258 tokens. Larger images are divided into a grid of 768x768 pixel tiles, with each tile incurring a 258-token cost. This tokenization process is crucial for developers to manage API costs and optimize context window usage in multimodal applications. AI

IMPACT Developers can optimize costs and context window usage for multimodal applications by understanding Gemini's image tokenization.

RANK_REASON Article explains technical details of a specific product's functionality and cost structure.

Read on dev.to — LLM tag →

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Gemini API image tokenization costs explained

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  1. dev.to — LLM tag TIER_1 English(EN) · Kushagra Mehrotra ·

    Can image tokens cost less than text tokens - Explaining Gemini API Image Token Economics

    <p>When building multimodal applications with Google Gemini API, understanding how visual inputs are tokenized is crucial. Unlike simple text where 1 token ≈ 0.75 words, processing images involves Vision Transformers (ViTs), patch slicing, and dynamic grid tiling.</p> <p>In this …