Choose Google: Gemma 4 26B A4B if…
- you need image input — to read screenshots, charts and scanned pages; Recursive: Flint (free) does not advertise it
Google: Gemma 4 26B A4B vs Recursive: Flint (free)
Neither wins outright: Google: Gemma 4 26B A4B is the pick when you need image input, Recursive: Flint (free) when cost matters at scale.
Key numbers
| Spec | Google: Gemma 4 26B A4B | Recursive: Flint (free) |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Recursive | |
| Input price (per 1M tokens) | $0.08 | $0 |
| Output price (per 1M tokens) | $0.26 | $0 |
| Blended price (3:1 input/output) | $0.12 | $0 |
| Cheaper than … of all models we track | 79% | 90% |
| Context window | 262K tokens (~393 pages) | 262K tokens (~393 pages) |
| Larger context than … of all models | 47% | 47% |
| Max output per response | 236K tokens (~176,900 words) | 236K tokens (~176,900 words) |
| Input types | image, text, video | text |
| Output types | text | text |
| Free variant | Yes | Yes |
| Listed since | 2026-04-03 | 2026-10-21 |
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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 4 26B A4B | Recursive: Flint (free) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Customer-support chatbot 50,000 conversations — each a 6-turn conversation (1,500 in / 400 out tokens) | $10.84 | $0 | Recursive: Flint (free) saves $10.84 |
| RAG search over documents 20,000 questions — each a question answered from ~8 retrieved passages (6,000 in / 500 out tokens) | $11.73 | $0 | Recursive: Flint (free) saves $11.73 |
| 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) | $12.24 | $0 | Recursive: Flint (free) saves $12.24 |
| Batch summarisation 10,000 documents — each a 6,000-word report summarised to a page (8,000 in / 600 out tokens) | $7.65 | $0 | Recursive: Flint (free) saves $7.65 |
| Long-document analysis 500 documents — each a 150-page contract or codebase read in one pass (100,000 in / 2,000 out tokens) | $4.08 | $0 | Recursive: Flint (free) saves $4.08 |
Capabilities side by side
| Capability | Google: Gemma 4 26B A4B | Recursive: Flint (free) | 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 | — | 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 | — | — | generate images, not just text |
| Built-in web search | — | — | answer from live web results |
| Seed (reproducible sampling) | ✓ Yes | ✓ Yes | repeat a generation for tests and evals |
| Log-probabilities | ✓ Yes | ✓ 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: Gemma 4 26B A4B: input price raised 12% ($0.07 → $0.08/1M), output price raised 12% ($0.23 → $0.26/1M) on 2026-10-20 (12 price changes since 2026-08-06).
- Recursive: Flint (free): price unchanged since we started tracking it on 2026-10-22.
| Date | Model | Input / 1M | Output / 1M |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-10-20 | Google: Gemma 4 26B A4B | $0.08 | $0.26 |
| 2026-10-17 | Google: Gemma 4 26B A4B | $0.07 | $0.23 |
| 2026-10-13 | Google: Gemma 4 26B A4B | $0.08 | $0.26 |
| 2026-10-10 | Google: Gemma 4 26B A4B | $0.07 | $0.23 |
| 2026-10-06 | Google: Gemma 4 26B A4B | $0.08 | $0.26 |
| 2026-10-03 | Google: Gemma 4 26B A4B | $0.07 | $0.23 |
| 2026-09-29 | Google: Gemma 4 26B A4B | $0.08 | $0.26 |
| 2026-09-26 | Google: Gemma 4 26B A4B | $0.07 | $0.23 |
Which should you choose?
Choose Recursive: Flint (free) if…
- cost matters at scale — it is 100% cheaper on a typical 3:1 input/output mix ($0 vs $10.84 a month for 50,000 support chats)
- you want the newer model — released 2026-10-21, 7 months after the other
Frequently asked questions
Is Google: Gemma 4 26B A4B better than Recursive: Flint (free)?
Neither wins outright: Google: Gemma 4 26B A4B is the pick when you need image input, Recursive: Flint (free) when cost matters at scale. In short: Google: Gemma 4 26B A4B when you need image input; Recursive: Flint (free) when cost matters at scale, you want the newer model.
Which is cheaper, Google: Gemma 4 26B A4B or Recursive: Flint (free)?
Recursive: Flint (free) is cheaper: $0 vs $0.12 per 1M tokens at a typical 3:1 input/output mix, 100% less. For 50,000 support conversations a month that is $0 against $10.84.
How much do Google: Gemma 4 26B A4B and Recursive: Flint (free) cost per million tokens?
Google: Gemma 4 26B A4B costs $0.08 per 1M input tokens and $0.26 per 1M output tokens; Recursive: Flint (free) costs $0 input and $0 output. Output tokens are billed separately, so long answers shift the gap.
Which has the bigger context window, Google: Gemma 4 26B A4B or Recursive: Flint (free)?
Both take 262K tokens per request — roughly 393 pages of text.
Do Google: Gemma 4 26B A4B and Recursive: Flint (free) support function calling and JSON output?
Tool calling — Google: Gemma 4 26B A4B: yes, Recursive: Flint (free): yes. JSON-schema structured output — Google: Gemma 4 26B A4B: yes, Recursive: Flint (free): yes.
Can Google: Gemma 4 26B A4B or Recursive: Flint (free) read images?
Only Google: Gemma 4 26B A4B accepts image input; Recursive: Flint (free) is text-only for input.
Is Google: Gemma 4 26B A4B or Recursive: Flint (free) free to use?
Google: Gemma 4 26B A4B has a free variant (google/gemma-4-26b-a4b-it:free); Recursive: Flint (free) has a free variant (recursive/flint-v1.0:free). Free variants usually carry tighter rate limits.
What is the maximum output length of Google: Gemma 4 26B A4B and Recursive: Flint (free)?
Google: Gemma 4 26B A4B can write up to 236K tokens (about 176,900 words) per response; Recursive: Flint (free) up to 236K (about 176,900 words).
When were Google: Gemma 4 26B A4B and Recursive: Flint (free) released?
Google: Gemma 4 26B A4B was listed on 2026-04-03; Recursive: Flint (free) on 2026-10-21.
Has the price of Google: Gemma 4 26B A4B or Recursive: Flint (free) changed?
Google: Gemma 4 26B A4B: input price raised 12% ($0.07 → $0.08/1M), output price raised 12% ($0.23 → $0.26/1M) on 2026-10-20 (12 price changes since 2026-08-06). Recursive: Flint (free): price unchanged since we started tracking it on 2026-10-22.
About the two models
Google: 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...
Full Google: Gemma 4 26B A4B specs →Recursive: Flint (free)
Flint is an open-weight mixture-of-experts model from Recursive, with about 2.5B active parameters out of 40B total, built by Recursive's autoresearch system Eureka Machine for coding agents. It is suited...
Full Recursive: Flint (free) specs →