google/gemma-3-4b-it vs laion/CLIP-convnext_base_w-laion2B-s13B-b82K-augreg

Neither wins outright: google/gemma-3-4b-it is the pick when you need structured output (JSON schema), laion/CLIP-convnext_base_w-laion2B-s13B-b82K-augreg when you need image output.

Key numbers

Spec	google/gemma-3-4b-it	laion/CLIP-convnext_base_w-laion2B-s13B-b82K-augreg
Provider	Google	Hugging Face
Input price (per 1M tokens)	$0.05	n/a
Output price (per 1M tokens)	$0.10	n/a
Blended price (3:1 input/output)	$0.06	n/a
Cheaper than … of all models we track	85%	n/a
Context window	131K tokens (~197 pages)	n/a
Larger context than … of all models	23%	n/a
Max output per response	16K tokens (~12,300 words)	n/a
Input types	text, image	text
Output types	text	image
Free variant	Yes	No
Listed since	2025-03-13	n/a

What it costs for real workloads

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/gemma-3-4b-it	laion/CLIP-convnext_base_w-laion2B-s13B-b82K-augreg	Difference
Customer-support chatbot 50,000 conversations — each a 6-turn conversation (1,500 in / 400 out tokens)	$5.75	n/a	—
RAG search over documents 20,000 questions — each a question answered from ~8 retrieved passages (6,000 in / 500 out tokens)	$7.00	n/a	—
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)	$7.20	n/a	—
Batch summarisation 10,000 documents — each a 6,000-word report summarised to a page (8,000 in / 600 out tokens)	$4.60	n/a	—
Long-document analysis 500 documents — each a 150-page contract or codebase read in one pass (100,000 in / 2,000 out tokens)	$2.60	n/a	—

Capabilities side by side

Capability	google/gemma-3-4b-it	laion/CLIP-convnext_base_w-laion2B-s13B-b82K-augreg	What it lets you do
Tool / function calling	—	—	call your APIs and run agent loops
Structured output (JSON schema)	✓ Yes	—	return JSON that validates against your schema
Reasoning / thinking mode	—	—	spend extra tokens thinking before answering hard problems
Image input	✓ Yes	—	read screenshots, charts and scanned pages
Audio input	—	—	take speech or audio directly
File / PDF input	—	—	accept documents without your own parsing step
Image output	—	✓ Yes	generate images, not just text
Built-in web search	—	—	answer from live web results
Seed (reproducible sampling)	✓ Yes	—	repeat a generation for tests and evals
Log-probabilities	—	—	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/gemma-3-4b-it: input price raised 20% ($0.04 → $0.05/1M), output price raised 20% ($0.08 → $0.10/1M) on 2026-08-06.

Date	Model	Input / 1M	Output / 1M
2026-08-06	google/gemma-3-4b-it	$0.05	$0.10

Which should you choose?

Choose google/gemma-3-4b-it if…

you need structured output (JSON schema) — to return JSON that validates against your schema; laion/CLIP-convnext_base_w-laion2B-s13B-b82K-augreg does not advertise it
you need image input — to read screenshots, charts and scanned pages; laion/CLIP-convnext_base_w-laion2B-s13B-b82K-augreg does not advertise it
you need seed (reproducible sampling) — to repeat a generation for tests and evals; laion/CLIP-convnext_base_w-laion2B-s13B-b82K-augreg does not advertise it
you want to prototype at zero cost — a free variant is listed

Choose laion/CLIP-convnext_base_w-laion2B-s13B-b82K-augreg if…

you need image output — to generate images, not just text; google/gemma-3-4b-it does not advertise it

Frequently asked questions

Is google/gemma-3-4b-it better than laion/CLIP-convnext_base_w-laion2B-s13B-b82K-augreg?

Neither wins outright: google/gemma-3-4b-it is the pick when you need structured output (JSON schema), laion/CLIP-convnext_base_w-laion2B-s13B-b82K-augreg when you need image output. In short: google/gemma-3-4b-it when you need structured output (JSON schema), you need image input, you need seed (reproducible sampling), you want to prototype at zero cost; laion/CLIP-convnext_base_w-laion2B-s13B-b82K-augreg when you need image output.

Do google/gemma-3-4b-it and laion/CLIP-convnext_base_w-laion2B-s13B-b82K-augreg support function calling and JSON output?

Tool calling — google/gemma-3-4b-it: not advertised, laion/CLIP-convnext_base_w-laion2B-s13B-b82K-augreg: not advertised. JSON-schema structured output — google/gemma-3-4b-it: yes, laion/CLIP-convnext_base_w-laion2B-s13B-b82K-augreg: not advertised.

Can google/gemma-3-4b-it or laion/CLIP-convnext_base_w-laion2B-s13B-b82K-augreg read images?

Only google/gemma-3-4b-it accepts image input; laion/CLIP-convnext_base_w-laion2B-s13B-b82K-augreg is text-only for input.

Is google/gemma-3-4b-it or laion/CLIP-convnext_base_w-laion2B-s13B-b82K-augreg free to use?

google/gemma-3-4b-it has a free variant (google/gemma-3-4b-it:free). Free variants usually carry tighter rate limits.

Has the price of google/gemma-3-4b-it or laion/CLIP-convnext_base_w-laion2B-s13B-b82K-augreg changed?

google/gemma-3-4b-it: input price raised 20% ($0.04 → $0.05/1M), output price raised 20% ($0.08 → $0.10/1M) on 2026-08-06.

About the two models

Google

google/gemma-3-4b-it

Gemma 3 introduces multimodality, supporting vision-language input and text outputs. It handles context windows up to 128k tokens, understands over 140 languages, and offers improved math, reasoning, and chat capabilities,...

Full google/gemma-3-4b-it specs →

Hugging Face

laion/CLIP-convnext_base_w-laion2B-s13B-b82K-augreg

No description provided yet.

Full laion/CLIP-convnext_base_w-laion2B-s13B-b82K-augreg specs →

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