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

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

Verdict

Gemma 4 26B A4B is Google's free, mid-sized multimodal model with a massive 262K token context window. It handles text, images, and video without usage fees, making it ideal for prototyping or high-volume workflows where cost is the primary constraint. The trade-off is performance: expect weaker reasoning and instruction-following than paid alternatives like GPT-4o or Claude Sonnet. Reach for this when you need multimodal capability at zero cost and can tolerate lower accuracy.

Best for

  • Zero-cost prototyping with multimodal inputs
  • High-volume tasks where budget blocks paid models
  • Video analysis without per-token charges
  • Long-document processing on tight budgets
  • Educational projects requiring image understanding

Strengths

The 262K context window rivals premium models while costing nothing per token. Multimodal support spans text, images, and video — rare at this price point. Google's infrastructure means fast inference and high availability. For teams testing multimodal workflows or running high-volume experiments, the zero-cost structure removes financial friction entirely. The model handles basic vision tasks and long-context retrieval competently enough for non-critical applications.

Trade-offs

No public benchmarks exist yet, but as a free mid-sized model, expect reasoning and instruction-following to lag behind paid 70B+ alternatives. Complex multi-step tasks, nuanced creative writing, and precise code generation will likely underperform compared to GPT-4o or Claude Sonnet 4.5. The proprietary license limits commercial deployment flexibility. Video understanding, while present, typically trails specialized vision models in accuracy and detail extraction.

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 Projects have used this model yet to share anonymised team stats. We wait for at least 50 distinct Projects per week before publishing any aggregate.

Starter prompts

Summarize Long PDF

Read this entire document and provide a structured summary with the 5 most important findings, 3 key recommendations, and any critical risks mentioned.

Analyze Screenshot UI

Describe all visible UI elements in this screenshot, list any text you can read, and suggest one improvement to the layout.

Batch Process Images

For each image I provide, generate 3-5 descriptive tags and a one-sentence caption. Focus on objects, colors, and setting.

Extract Video Keyframes

Watch this video and list timestamps where major scene changes occur. For each, write a 10-word description of what's happening.

Draft Budget-Friendly Copy

Write a 150-word product description for [product name] targeting [audience]. Focus on benefits, use simple language, and include a call to action.

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.

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Data last verified 13 hours ago.Sources aggregated hourly to weekly. See docs/architecture/model-directory.md.