Nano Banana
Google's fast everyday image model — the one to reach for when you want a usable result in under five seconds.
- Vendor
- Released
- Aug 26, 2025
- Max resolution
- 1K
- Best for
- Speed + iteration
What is Nano Banana?
Nano Banana is the unofficial name (originated as a team nickname at Google DeepMind, later confirmed publicly) for Gemini 2.5 Flash Image, released August 26, 2025 and GA on Vertex AI in October. It is the default model on CVY.AI because it strikes the best balance of speed, multilingual quality and per-image cost for everyday work.
It is the default model for most generations unless you pick a heavier option — the Gemini 2.5 Flash Image model from Google, tuned for speed and low per-image cost.
Use it for fast iteration, character consistency work, multilingual prompts, and any case where the image is going to be scrolled past rather than printed. Reach for Nano Banana Pro or GPT Image 2 when the output has to survive close inspection.
What Nano Banana is good at
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Fast — 1-2 seconds typical
Google's published latency for Gemini 2.5 Flash Image puts most generations in the 1-2 second range, with edge cases under 10. Faster than every other model on the platform, which is why it is the default for the homepage trial and the workhorse for batch iteration.
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Character consistency across prompts
The headline feature at launch. Supply a reference image and Nano Banana keeps the same character recognizable across new poses, scenes and outfits — useful for storyboarding, product variation shots, and "same person, different setting" social content.
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Multi-image fusion
Blend multiple reference images into one output. Useful for "this character + this setting + this lighting" composites that would normally take three rounds of prompt-editing in a one-shot model.
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Multilingual prompt understanding
Reads prompts in English, Chinese, Japanese and Korean without an explicit translation step. The Chinese results are noticeably better than what GPT-Image-1.5 used to produce — same family that powers Gemini app for non-Latin users.
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Cheapest non-trivial option here
At 2 credits per 1K image, it is the lowest-cost named model on cvy.ai with a Google-quality engine behind it. Margin is thin by design so we can keep the homepage trial free and the Pro tier credits stretch further.
When to reach for Nano Banana
- +Iterating fast across many prompts — speed compounds when you generate dozens of variants.
- +Social posts, blog heroes, product mockups, and other "draft quality is enough" work.
- +Anything where keeping the same character recognizable across multiple frames matters (storyboards, character variations).
- +Chinese, Japanese, or Korean prompts — multilingual quality is well above the older models.
- −In-image text — Nano Banana renders text approximately but not reliably. Use GPT Image 2 instead.
- −Hero / print / "this image will be enlarged and scrutinized" work — Nano Banana Pro is sharper at the same composition.
- −Long, multi-constraint prompts with strict layout requirements — reasoning matters there; pick GPT Image 2.
How much does Nano Banana cost?
| Resolution | Credits |
|---|---|
| 1K | 2 |
| 2K | 2 |
| 4K | 2 |
1 credit ≈ one 1K Nano Banana generation. See pricing for monthly credit bundles.
How much does Nano Banana cost?+
How is this different from Nano Banana Pro?+
Does Nano Banana support image-to-image editing?+
Why is it so cheap?+
Compare other AI image models
Use these pages to pick between speed, output quality, text rendering, and prompt-language fit.
Nano Banana Pro
Google's flagship image model — reasoning-powered, native 4K, the one you reach for when the image has to survive close inspection.
GPT Image 2
OpenAI's reasoning-powered image model — the one that finally renders readable text, infographics, slides and multilingual layouts.
Seedream 4.5
ByteDance's flagship image model — the strongest pick for Chinese-language prompts and the only model here that accepts up to 14 reference images at once.
Ready to try Nano Banana?
Open the generator with Nano Banana preselected, or browse community work for inspiration.