LLMgoogle

Google: Gemma 4 26B A4B (free)

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...

Anyone in the Space can @-mention Google: Gemma 4 26B A4B (free) with the team's shared context - pooled credits, one chat, one memory.

All models

Starter is free forever - 1 Space, 100 credits/month, 1 MCP. No card.

Verdict

Gemma 4 26B A4B is Google's free, multimodal workhorse with a massive 262K context window—ideal for teams that need vision and long-document processing without per-token costs. The A4B quantization trades some accuracy for speed and lower memory footprint, so expect slightly softer performance than full-precision variants on complex reasoning. Reach for this when budget is zero and you need multimodal capabilities across text, images, and video at scale.

Best for

  • Zero-cost multimodal prototyping
  • Long-document analysis without API bills
  • Video content summarization and extraction
  • High-volume batch processing on tight budgets
  • Image-based data extraction tasks

Strengths

The 262K context window handles entire codebases, long PDFs, or multi-hour video transcripts in a single pass. Multimodal support across text, image, and video makes it versatile for content pipelines. Free pricing eliminates cost anxiety for experimentation and high-volume workflows. The 26B parameter count delivers reasonable performance for most general-purpose tasks without requiring enterprise-grade infrastructure.

Trade-offs

A4B quantization reduces precision, so complex reasoning and nuanced instruction-following lag behind full-precision models like Claude or GPT-4. No public benchmarks yet means performance on standard evals is unverified—you're flying blind compared to models with MMLU or HumanEval scores. Free tier often means rate limits or availability constraints during peak usage. Proprietary license restricts fine-tuning and on-premise deployment.

Specifications

Provider
google
Category
llm
Context length
262,144 tokens
Max output
32,768 tokens
Modalities
image, text, video
License
proprietary
Released
2026-04-03

Pricing

Input
$0.00/Mtok
Output
$0.00/Mtok
Model ID
google/gemma-4-26b-a4b-it:free

Per-token prices show what the model costs upstream. On Switchy your team draws from one shared org credit pool - one plan, one balance for everyone.

Team cost calculator

Estimated monthly spend
Freeno token cost
17.6M tokens / month
5 seats · 80 msgs/day

Switchy meters this against your org's shared credit pool - one plan, one balance for everyone.

Providers

ProviderContextInputOutputP50 latencyThroughput30d uptime
google262k$0.00/Mtok$0.00/Mtok

Performance

Performance snapshots are collected daily. Check back after the next ingestion run.

Benchmarks

Public benchmark scores are not available yet for this model. Check back after the next ingestion run.

Works well with

Top MCPs

Compatibility data comes from first-party telemetry; once we have enough co-usage signal, top MCPs for this model will appear here.

How Switchy teams use it

Not enough Spaces have used this model yet to share anonymised team stats. We wait for at least 50 distinct Spaces per week before publishing any aggregate.

Starter prompts

Extract Invoice Data

Extract the invoice number, date, total amount, and line items from this invoice image. Return the data as a JSON object with clear field names.
Open in a Space →

Summarize Video Transcript

Here's a full transcript of a 90-minute webinar. Summarize the main arguments, key takeaways, and any action items mentioned. Keep it under 200 words.
Open in a Space →

Analyze Codebase Structure

Review these 15 Python files from a web app. Describe the overall architecture, identify the main entry points, and flag any circular dependencies or code smells.
Open in a Space →

Compare Product Screenshots

Compare these two screenshots of the same app feature. List all visual differences, including layout changes, color shifts, and missing or added elements.
Open in a Space →

Generate Report from PDFs

I've uploaded three research PDFs totaling 80 pages. Write a 500-word executive summary highlighting common themes, conflicting findings, and gaps in the literature.
Open in a Space →

Example outputs

Illustrative - representative of the model's voice and quality, not literal recordings.

Prompt

Review this Python function for potential bugs and suggest improvements. Focus on edge cases and performance.

Output

The function handles the happy path correctly, but there are three issues: First, it doesn't validate input types—passing a string where an integer is expected will cause a runtime error. Second, the loop creates a new list on each iteration instead of pre-allocating, which impacts performance with large datasets. Third, there's no handling for empty input, which will raise an IndexError. I'd recommend adding type hints, using list comprehension for the transformation, and adding an early return for empty collections.

Notes

This example shows Gemma 4's code review capabilities within its 262K token context window, allowing it to analyze substantial codebases. The response is structured and actionable, though without benchmark data we can't compare its bug-detection accuracy to specialized code models like Claude or GPT-4.

Prompt

Analyze this product photo and suggest three specific improvements to make it more appealing for e-commerce. The image shows a ceramic mug on a wooden table with natural window light.

Output

The composition has good natural lighting, but three changes would strengthen it: First, the mug is slightly off-center—shifting it to follow the rule of thirds would create better visual balance. Second, the wooden table texture competes with the mug's glaze; a neutral backdrop would make the product pop. Third, the window light creates a harsh shadow on the right side; adding a white reflector opposite the window would soften shadows and show the mug's color more accurately. These adjustments would increase perceived product quality.

Notes

Demonstrates Gemma 4's multimodal analysis across image and text. The 262K context means it could process entire product catalogs in one session. However, without vision-specific benchmarks, we can't verify its accuracy against models like GPT-4V or Claude 3.5 Sonnet for visual tasks.

Prompt

Summarize this 45-minute investor call transcript, highlighting key financial metrics, strategic pivots mentioned, and any forward guidance provided by the CEO.

Output

The CEO reported Q3 revenue of $847M (up 23% YoY) and raised full-year guidance to $3.2-3.3B. Three strategic shifts emerged: First, the company is exiting the consumer hardware segment to focus on enterprise software, expecting $120M in restructuring costs. Second, they're accelerating AI infrastructure investment, allocating $400M in CapEx for H1 next year. Third, international expansion is paused until regulatory clarity improves in the EU. Management expects these changes to improve operating margins from 18% to 25% by end of next fiscal year, though near-term earnings will take a hit from the restructuring.

Notes

Showcases Gemma 4's long-context strength—262K tokens easily accommodates full transcripts with room for follow-up questions. The free pricing makes it viable for high-volume document processing. Trade-off: without benchmark scores, users can't assess its factual accuracy against paid alternatives for business-critical summaries.

Use-case deep-dives

Prototype chatbot development

Free 262K context makes Gemma 4 26B ideal for early-stage bot work

A 4-person startup building a customer support chatbot needs to iterate fast without burning budget on API calls. Gemma 4 26B gives you 262,144 tokens of context at $0.00/Mtok, which means you can load entire conversation histories, product docs, and FAQ databases into every request during the prototype phase. The multimodal support (text, image, video) lets you test visual troubleshooting flows without switching models. You won't hit production-grade latency or the reasoning ceiling of frontier models, but for the first 500 conversations where you're tuning prompts and testing edge cases, free context at this scale beats paying $2-5/Mtok on a commercial model. Once you validate product-market fit and conversation volume crosses 2,000/day, budget for a faster paid model.

Batch document analysis

When free multimodal input justifies slower processing on large doc sets

A legal aid nonprofit needs to extract key clauses from 1,200 scanned lease agreements (mix of PDFs and phone photos). Gemma 4 26B handles image and text input at zero cost, and the 262K context window fits most full leases in a single call. You'll process these overnight in batch mode—speed isn't the constraint when you're comparing $0.00 to $15-40 in API costs for the same job on GPT-4V or Claude 3.5 Sonnet. The model lacks public benchmarks, so test accuracy on 20 sample leases first; if extraction quality is above 85% on your schema, the cost savings justify manual review of edge cases. This works for one-time projects or monthly batches under 5,000 documents. Above that volume, pay for a faster model to avoid multi-day processing queues.

Internal video content moderation

Zero-cost video analysis for low-stakes community moderation at small scale

A 12-person online course platform needs to flag potentially inappropriate student-uploaded video intros before they go live in cohort channels. Gemma 4 26B's video modality and free pricing let you run every upload through a content policy check without adding a line item to your infrastructure budget. You're processing 40-80 videos/day, and false positives just route to human review—this isn't high-stakes moderation where a miss costs you regulatory exposure. The model's lack of published benchmarks means you can't predict accuracy against NSFW datasets, so run a 2-week shadow mode comparing its flags to your current manual review. If it catches 70%+ of policy violations with under 10% false positives, deploy it as a first-pass filter and keep one moderator in the loop for final calls.

Frequently asked

Is Gemma 4 26B good for general text tasks?

Yes, it handles most standard text work competently — drafting, summarization, Q&A, basic reasoning. The 26B parameter count puts it in the mid-tier range, so expect solid performance on everyday tasks but not frontier-level reasoning. The 262k context window means you can feed it entire codebases or long documents without chunking.

Is Gemma 4 26B actually free to use?

Yes, it's completely free with zero per-token costs for both input and output. Google subsidizes this as part of their open model strategy. For prototyping, side projects, or high-volume low-stakes work, the economics are unbeatable. Just know you're trading cost for the performance ceiling of larger commercial models.

Can Gemma 4 26B process images and video reliably?

It supports image and video inputs, but without public benchmarks we can't verify multimodal quality. Expect basic visual understanding — describing images, extracting text from screenshots — but don't rely on it for nuanced visual reasoning or complex video analysis. Test your specific use case before committing to production.

How does Gemma 4 26B compare to GPT-4o mini?

GPT-4o mini will outperform it on reasoning tasks and instruction-following, but costs money. Gemma 4 wins on price and context window size (262k vs 128k). If you need free inference and can tolerate slightly rougher outputs, Gemma 4 makes sense. For customer-facing work requiring polish, pay for GPT-4o mini.

Should I use Gemma 4 26B for production chatbots?

Only if budget is the primary constraint and you can handle occasional off-target responses. The free pricing removes cost risk, but 26B models lack the consistency of frontier chat models. Build robust fallback logic, log failures, and be ready to upgrade if quality issues surface at scale.

Data last verified 8 hours ago.Sources aggregated hourly to weekly. See docs/architecture/model-directory.md.