Google: Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite (batch) vs Particle AI: Particle-1
Neither wins outright: Google: Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite (batch) is the pick when cost matters at scale, Particle AI: Particle-1 when you need log-probabilities.
Monthly cost at list price for five common workloads. Token counts per unit are stated so you can scale them to your own traffic. A workload that does not fit a model's context window is marked rather than priced.
Workload (per month)
Google: Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite (batch)
Particle AI: Particle-1
Difference
Customer-support chatbot
50,000 conversations — each a 6-turn conversation (1,500 in / 400 out tokens)
$24.38
$38.75
Google: Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite (batch) saves $14.38
RAG search over documents
20,000 questions — each a question answered from ~8 retrieved passages (6,000 in / 500 out tokens)
$22.50
$40.00
Google: Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite (batch) saves $17.50
Coding / tool-using agent
2,000 tasks — each a multi-step task with tool calls and file context (60,000 in / 6,000 out tokens)
$24.00
$42.00
Google: Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite (batch) saves $18.00
Batch summarisation
10,000 documents — each a 6,000-word report summarised to a page (8,000 in / 600 out tokens)
$14.50
$26.00
Google: Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite (batch) saves $11.50
Long-document analysis
500 documents — each a 150-page contract or codebase read in one pass (100,000 in / 2,000 out tokens)
$7.00
$13.50
Google: Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite (batch) saves $6.50
Capabilities side by side
Capability
Google: Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite (batch)
Particle AI: Particle-1
What it lets you do
Tool / function calling
✓ Yes
✓ Yes
call your APIs and run agent loops
Structured output (JSON schema)
✓ Yes
✓ Yes
return JSON that validates against your schema
Reasoning / thinking mode
✓ Yes
✓ Yes
spend extra tokens thinking before answering hard problems
Image input
✓ Yes
✓ Yes
read screenshots, charts and scanned pages
Audio input
✓ Yes
—
take speech or audio directly
File / PDF input
✓ Yes
—
accept documents without your own parsing step
Image output
—
—
generate images, not just text
Built-in web search
✓ Yes
—
answer from live web results
Seed (reproducible sampling)
✓ Yes
✓ Yes
repeat a generation for tests and evals
Log-probabilities
—
✓ Yes
read token confidence for classification and scoring
From each model's published parameters and input/output types. “—” means not advertised, not proven absent.
Price history
Google: Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite (batch): price unchanged since we started tracking it on 2026-08-07.
Particle AI: Particle-1: price unchanged since we started tracking it on 2026-10-29.
Which should you choose?
Choose Google: Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite (batch) if…
cost matters at scale — it is 36% cheaper on a typical 3:1 input/output mix ($24.38 vs $38.75 a month for 50,000 support chats)
you need audio input — to take speech or audio directly; Particle AI: Particle-1 does not advertise it
you need file / PDF input — to accept documents without your own parsing step; Particle AI: Particle-1 does not advertise it
you need built-in web search — to answer from live web results; Particle AI: Particle-1 does not advertise it
Choose Particle AI: Particle-1 if…
you need log-probabilities — to read token confidence for classification and scoring; Google: Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite (batch) does not advertise it
you generate long outputs in one go — up to 131K tokens (about 98,300 words) per response
you want the newer model — released 2026-10-28, 6 months after the other
Frequently asked questions
Is Google: Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite (batch) better than Particle AI: Particle-1?
Neither wins outright: Google: Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite (batch) is the pick when cost matters at scale, Particle AI: Particle-1 when you need log-probabilities. In short: Google: Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite (batch) when cost matters at scale, you need audio input, you need file / PDF input, you need built-in web search; Particle AI: Particle-1 when you need log-probabilities, you generate long outputs in one go, you want the newer model.
Which is cheaper, Google: Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite (batch) or Particle AI: Particle-1?
Google: Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite (batch) is cheaper: $0.28 vs $0.44 per 1M tokens at a typical 3:1 input/output mix, 36% less. For 50,000 support conversations a month that is $24.38 against $38.75.
How much do Google: Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite (batch) and Particle AI: Particle-1 cost per million tokens?
Google: Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite (batch) costs $0.13 per 1M input tokens and $0.75 per 1M output tokens; Particle AI: Particle-1 costs $0.25 input and $1.00 output. Output tokens are billed separately, so long answers shift the gap.
Which has the bigger context window, Google: Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite (batch) or Particle AI: Particle-1?
Both take 1.0M tokens per request — roughly 1,573 pages of text.
Do Google: Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite (batch) and Particle AI: Particle-1 support function calling and JSON output?
Can Google: Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite (batch) or Particle AI: Particle-1 read images?
Yes, both accept image input.
Is Google: Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite (batch) or Particle AI: Particle-1 free to use?
No free variant is listed for either; both are pay-per-token.
What is the maximum output length of Google: Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite (batch) and Particle AI: Particle-1?
Google: Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite (batch) can write up to 66K tokens (about 49,200 words) per response; Particle AI: Particle-1 up to 131K (about 98,300 words).
When were Google: Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite (batch) and Particle AI: Particle-1 released?
Google: Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite (batch) was listed on 2026-05-07; Particle AI: Particle-1 on 2026-10-28.
Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite is Google’s GA high-efficiency multimodal model optimized for low-latency, high-volume workloads. It supports text, image, video, audio, and PDF inputs, and is designed for lightweight agentic...
Particle-1 is a token-efficient agentic coding model from Particle AI, post-trained on DeepSeek V4.1 Flash. It is suited for software engineering work such as terminal workflows, codebase changes, and data...