Seed 1.6 is $1.75 cheaper per 1M input tokens (87.5% lower; 8x difference).
API cost decision in 10 seconds
Seed 1.6 vs Nano Banana Pro (Gemini 3 Pro Image Preview)
Pick Seed 1.6 when budget and context both matter.
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Data confirmed:
Prices normalized to USD per 1M tokens
Sample workload: 1M input + 500K output
Budget verdict
Pick Seed 1.6 when budget and context both matter.
On the standard 1M input plus 500K output workload, Seed 1.6 is estimated at $1.25 vs $8 for Nano Banana Pro (Gemini 3 Pro Image Preview), saving $6.75 (84.4% lower).
Cost-first pickSeed 1.6
Context-first pickSeed 1.6
Sample savings$6.7584.4%
10x traffic gap$67.5
Seed 1.6 is cheaper on the standard workload and also has the larger context window. At 10x that traffic, the same price gap is about $67.5. Use the calculator below to replace the sample workload with your own token volume.
Cost sensitivity
Workload Sensitivity
Seed 1.6 stays cheaper across input-heavy, balanced, and output-heavy sample workloads.
| Workload shape | Token mix | Better pick | Seed 1.6 | Nano Banana Pro (Gemini 3 Pro Image Preview) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Input-heavy / RAG | 5M input + 500K output | Seed 1.6 | $2.25 | $16 |
| Balanced workload | 1M input + 1M output | Seed 1.6 | $2.25 | $14 |
| Output-heavy chatbot | 1M input + 5M output | Seed 1.6 | $10.25 | $62 |
Seed 1.6 is $10 cheaper per 1M output tokens (83.3% lower; 6x difference).
Seed 1.6 has 196.61K more context (4x larger).
Seed 1.6 is $6.75 cheaper on the standard workload (84.4% lower).
Estimate your workload cost
Your Workload Cost
This estimate uses normalized public API pricing per 1M tokens. It is a planning aid, not a billing quote. Verify provider pricing, limits, and terms before production use.
Quick Decision
Seed 1.6 has the lower input price; Seed 1.6 has the lower output price; Seed 1.6 offers the larger context window. For the 1M input plus 500K output sample, Seed 1.6 is cheaper for the standard workload.
For a 1M input token plus 500K output token workload, the estimated API cost is $1.25 for Seed 1.6 and $8 for Nano Banana Pro (Gemini 3 Pro Image Preview).
Choose Seed 1.6 when you care most about lower input-token price, lower output-token price, and larger context window.
Choose Nano Banana Pro (Gemini 3 Pro Image Preview) when its provider, model quality, latency, or availability is more important than the numeric price/context winner.
- On the standard 1M input plus 500K output workload, Seed 1.6 is estimated at $1.25 vs $8 for Nano Banana Pro (Gemini 3 Pro Image Preview), saving $6.75 (84.4% lower).
- Seed 1.6 is $6.75 cheaper on the standard workload (84.4% lower).
- Seed 1.6 is $1.75 cheaper per 1M input tokens (87.5% lower; 8x difference).
- Seed 1.6 is $10 cheaper per 1M output tokens (83.3% lower; 6x difference).
- Seed 1.6 has 196.61K more context (4x larger).
| Feature | Seed 1.6 (ByteDance Seed) | Nano Banana Pro (Gemini 3 Pro Image Preview) (Google) |
|---|---|---|
| Input Price prompt tokens per 1M | $0.25 | $2 |
| Completion Price per 1M tokens | $2 | $12 |
| Sample Workload Cost 1M input + 500K output | $1.25 | $8 |
| Context Window | 262.14K | 65.54K |
| Release Date |
Use-Case Decision Matrix
| Use case | Better pick | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Budget-constrained production | Seed 1.6 | On the standard 1M input plus 500K output workload, Seed 1.6 is estimated at $1.25 vs $8 for Nano Banana Pro (Gemini 3 Pro Image Preview), saving $6.75 (84.4% lower). |
| High-volume input processing | Seed 1.6 | Lower prompt-token price matters most when prompts, retrieved passages, or documents dominate the bill. |
| Long responses and chatbots | Seed 1.6 | Lower output-token price matters most when assistants generate many completion tokens. |
| RAG or long-document work | Seed 1.6 | A larger context window leaves more room for retrieved passages, conversation history, or source files. |
Related Alternatives
- Seed 1.6 Flash can replace Seed 1.6 when lower sample workload cost matters most: $0.22.
- Seed-2.0-Mini can replace Seed 1.6 when lower sample workload cost matters most: $0.3.
- Gemma 4 26B A4B (free) can replace Nano Banana Pro (Gemini 3 Pro Image Preview) when lower sample workload cost matters most: $0.
- Gemma 4 31B (free) can replace Nano Banana Pro (Gemini 3 Pro Image Preview) when lower sample workload cost matters most: $0.
- Llama 4 Scout offers 10M context with $0.23 sample workload cost.
- Grok 4.20 Multi-Agent offers 2M context with $5 sample workload cost.
- Grok 4.20 offers 2M context with $2.5 sample workload cost.
- GPT-5.4 offers 1.05M context with $10 sample workload cost.
- DeepSeek V4 Flash · DeepSeek · #1
- Hy3 preview · Tencent · #2
- Claude Opus 4.7 · Anthropic · #3
- Claude Sonnet 4.6 · Anthropic · #4
Cheaper alternatives
Review low-cost models sorted by a standard 1M input plus 500K output workload.
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Open provider hubsByteDance Seed catalog
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Open Google modelsSeed 1.6 is a general-purpose model released by the ByteDance Seed team. It incorporates multimodal capabilities and adaptive deep thinking with a 256K context window.
Nano Banana Pro is Google’s most advanced image-generation and editing model, built on Gemini 3 Pro. It extends the original Nano Banana with significantly improved multimodal reasoning, real-world grounding, and...