API cost decision in 10 seconds

Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B (free) vs Nemotron Nano 12B 2 VL (free)

The standard workload cost is tied; choose by context window, provider fit, latency, or model quality.

Pricing data updated: 2026-05-26T11:08:00Z Prices normalized to USD per 1M tokens Sample workload: 1M input + 500K output

Budget verdict

The standard workload cost is tied; choose by context window, provider fit, latency, or model quality.

Both models are estimated at $0 for the standard 1M input plus 500K output workload.

Cost-first pickTie

Context-first pickNemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B (free)

Sample savings$00%

10x traffic gap$0

Context-window winner: Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B (free). Cost does not separate this pair on the standard workload, so the next decision point is context window and model behavior.

Cost sensitivity

Workload Sensitivity

Same prices, different token mixes.

The two models stay tied across the input-heavy, balanced, and output-heavy sample workloads.

Workload shape	Token mix	Better pick	Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B (free)	Nemotron Nano 12B 2 VL (free)
Input-heavy / RAG	5M input + 500K output	Tie	$0	$0
Balanced workload	1M input + 1M output	Tie	$0	$0
Output-heavy chatbot	1M input + 5M output	Tie	$0	$0

Cheaper input Tie $0 vs $0 / 1M

Both models report the same input price at $0 per 1M tokens.

Cheaper output Tie $0 vs $0 / 1M

Both models report the same output price at $0 per 1M tokens.

Larger context Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B (free) 256K vs 128K

Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B (free) has 128K more context (2x larger).

Sample workload Tie $0 vs $0

Both models have the same estimated cost for the standard 1M input plus 500K output workload: $0.

Estimate your workload cost

Your Workload Cost

Prices are normalized to USD per 1M tokens.

Monthly input tokens Monthly output tokens

Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B (free) Calculating… Estimated API cost

Nemotron Nano 12B 2 VL (free) Calculating… Estimated API cost

Cheaper for this workload Calculating… 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

both models tie on input price; both models tie on output price; Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B (free) offers the larger context window. For the 1M input plus 500K output sample, the standard workload cost is tied.

For a 1M input token plus 500K output token workload, the estimated API cost is $0 for Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B (free) and $0 for Nemotron Nano 12B 2 VL (free).

Best Fit

Choose Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B (free) when you care most about larger context window.

Choose Nemotron Nano 12B 2 VL (free) when its provider, model quality, latency, or availability is more important than the numeric price/context winner.

Decision Notes

Both models are estimated at $0 for the standard 1M input plus 500K output workload.
Both models have the same estimated cost for the standard 1M input plus 500K output workload: $0.
Both models report the same input price at $0 per 1M tokens.
Both models report the same output price at $0 per 1M tokens.
Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B (free) has 128K more context (2x larger).

Head-to-Head Specs

Feature	Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B (free) (NVIDIA)	Nemotron Nano 12B 2 VL (free) (NVIDIA)
Input Price prompt tokens per 1M	$0	$0
Completion Price per 1M tokens	$0	$0
Sample Workload Cost 1M input + 500K output	$0	$0
Context Window	256K	128K
Release Date	2025-12-14	2025-10-28

Use-Case Decision Matrix

Use case	Better pick	Why
Budget-constrained production	Tie	Both models are estimated at $0 for the standard 1M input plus 500K output workload.
High-volume input processing	Tie	Lower prompt-token price matters most when prompts, retrieved passages, or documents dominate the bill.
Long responses and chatbots	Tie	Lower output-token price matters most when assistants generate many completion tokens.
RAG or long-document work	Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B (free)	A larger context window leaves more room for retrieved passages, conversation history, or source files.

Related Alternatives

Same-provider lower-cost swaps

No lower-cost same-provider swap is currently tracked for this pair.

Larger context near this budget

Owl Alpha offers 1.05M context with $0 sample workload cost.
DeepSeek V4 Flash (free) offers 1.05M context with $0 sample workload cost.
Lyria 3 Pro Preview offers 1.05M context with $0 sample workload cost.
Lyria 3 Clip Preview offers 1.05M context with $0 sample workload cost.

Popular competitors

No popular competitor is currently available.

Cheaper alternatives

Review low-cost models sorted by a standard 1M input plus 500K output workload.

Open cheapest models

Larger context alternatives

Find models with larger context windows for RAG, long documents, and codebase review.

Open largest context models

Provider catalogs

Compare models within provider hubs before choosing a final API vendor.

Open provider hubs

NVIDIA catalog

Review all tracked NVIDIA models before deciding whether this matchup is the right shortlist.

Open NVIDIA models

Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B (free)

NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B is a small language MoE model with highest compute efficiency and accuracy for developers to build specialized agentic AI systems. The model is fully...

Nemotron Nano 12B 2 VL (free)

NVIDIA Nemotron Nano 2 VL is a 12-billion-parameter open multimodal reasoning model designed for video understanding and document intelligence. It introduces a hybrid Transformer-Mamba architecture, combining transformer-level accuracy with Mamba’s...