API cost decision in 10 seconds

Gemma 4 26B A4B vs 🔥DeepSeek V3.2

Pick Gemma 4 26B A4B when budget and context both matter.

Pricing data updated:  Prices normalized to USD per 1M tokens Sample workload: 1M input + 500K output

Budget verdict

Pick Gemma 4 26B A4B when budget and context both matter.

On the standard 1M input plus 500K output workload, Gemma 4 26B A4B is estimated at $0.23 vs $0.44 for DeepSeek V3.2, saving $0.22 (49% lower).

Cost-first pickGemma 4 26B A4B
Context-first pickGemma 4 26B A4B
Sample savings$0.2249%
10x traffic gap$2.16

Gemma 4 26B A4B is cheaper on the standard workload and also has the larger context window. At 10x that traffic, the same price gap is about $2.16. Use the calculator below to replace the sample workload with your own token volume.

Cost sensitivity

Workload Sensitivity

Same prices, different token mixes.

Gemma 4 26B A4B stays cheaper across input-heavy, balanced, and output-heavy sample workloads.

Workload shapeToken mixBetter pickGemma 4 26B A4BDeepSeek V3.2
Input-heavy / RAG 5M input + 500K output Gemma 4 26B A4B $0.46 $1.45
Balanced workload 1M input + 1M output Gemma 4 26B A4B $0.39 $0.63
Output-heavy chatbot 1M input + 5M output Gemma 4 26B A4B $1.71 $2.14
Cheaper inputGemma 4 26B A4B$0.06 vs $0.25 / 1M
Cheaper outputGemma 4 26B A4B$0.33 vs $0.38 / 1M
Larger contextGemma 4 26B A4B262.14K vs 131.07K
Sample workloadGemma 4 26B A4B$0.23 vs $0.44

Estimate your workload cost

Your Workload Cost

Prices are normalized to USD per 1M tokens.
Gemma 4 26B A4BCalculating…Estimated API cost
DeepSeek V3.2Calculating…Estimated API cost
Cheaper for this workloadCalculating…Difference: calculating…

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

Verdict

Gemma 4 26B A4B has the lower input price, Gemma 4 26B A4B has the lower output price, and Gemma 4 26B A4B offers the larger context window.

For a 1M input token plus 500K output token workload, the estimated API cost is $0.23 for Gemma 4 26B A4B and $0.44 for DeepSeek V3.2.

Best Fit

Choose Gemma 4 26B A4B when you care most about lower input-token price, lower output-token price, and larger context window.

Choose DeepSeek V3.2 when its provider, model quality, latency, or availability is more important than the numeric price/context winner.

Head-to-Head Specs
FeatureGemma 4 26B A4B
(Google)		🔥DeepSeek V3.2
(DeepSeek)
Input Price
prompt tokens per 1M		$0.06$0.25
Completion Price
per 1M tokens		$0.33$0.38
Sample Workload Cost
1M input + 500K output		$0.23$0.44
Context Window262.14K131.07K
Release Date2026-04-032025-12-01
Popularity#8
Gemma 4 26B A4B

Gemma 4 26B A4B IT is an instruction-tuned Mixture-of-Experts (MoE) model from Google DeepMind. Despite 25.2B total parameters, only 3.8B activate per token during inference — delivering near-31B quality at...

DeepSeek V3.2

DeepSeek-V3.2 is a large language model designed to harmonize high computational efficiency with strong reasoning and agentic tool-use performance. It introduces DeepSeek Sparse Attention (DSA), a fine-grained sparse attention mechanism...

Use-Case Decision Matrix

Use caseBetter pickWhy
Budget-constrained productionGemma 4 26B A4BOn the standard 1M input plus 500K output workload, Gemma 4 26B A4B is estimated at $0.23 vs $0.44 for DeepSeek V3.2, saving $0.22 (49% lower).
High-volume input processingGemma 4 26B A4BLower prompt-token price matters most when prompts or retrieved passages dominate the bill.
Long responses and chatbotsGemma 4 26B A4BLower output-token price matters most when assistants generate many completion tokens.
RAG or long-document workGemma 4 26B A4BA larger context window leaves more room for retrieved passages and source files.