Google: Gemini 4 Carbon vs Google: Gemini 4 Argon (batch)
Side-by-side comparison of specs, pricing, benchmark scores, and task rankings. Updated 2026-11-12.
| Google: Gemini 4 Carbon | Google: Gemini 4 Argon (batch) | |
|---|---|---|
| Vendor | ||
| Quality Score | 100 | 100 |
| Benchmark Score | 98.9 | 82.1 |
| Input Price | $2.00/M | $1.00/M |
| Output Price | $10.00/M | $5.00/M |
| Context Window | 1,048,576 | 1,048,576 |
| Max Output | 943,718 | 943,718 |
| Tool Calling | ✓ | ✓ |
| Structured Output | ✓ | ✓ |
| Reasoning Mode | ✓ | ✓ |
| Vision | ✓ | ✓ |
| Audio | ✓ | ✓ |
| Benchmark Scores | ||
| ai_index | 99.0 | 83.2 |
The verdict
For a sample job of 1 million input tokens and 250,000 output tokens, Gemini 4 Argon (batch) costs $2.25 and Gemini 4 Carbon costs $4.50, so Gemini 4 Argon (batch) is about 2.0 times cheaper for the same work.
Both read up to 1,048,576 tokens at once, roughly 1,573 pages of text.
On our blended benchmark score Gemini 4 Carbon leads 98.9 to 82.1.
Across the 20 tasks where they differ, Gemini 4 Carbon scores higher on 16 (SQL Generation, Code Review, Code Refactoring and others), Gemini 4 Argon (batch) on 4 (Code Completion, JSON Extraction, Bulk Data Labeling and others).
Gemini 4 Carbon was released in November 2026 and Gemini 4 Argon (batch) in October 2026.
Pick Gemini 4 Carbon if you need benchmark performance or the stronger all-round task scores; pick Gemini 4 Argon (batch) if you need lower cost.
Costs use current list prices per million tokens; page counts assume about 0.75 words per token and 500 words per page.
Who wins by task?
| Task | Google: Gemini 4 Carbon | Google: Gemini 4 Argon (batch) |
|---|---|---|
| SQL Generation | 144 | 143 |
| Code Review | 150 | 147 |
| Code Completion | 119 | 120 |
| Code Refactoring | 151 | 149 |
| Bug Fixing | 154 | 151 |
| Unit Test Generation | 135 | 134 |
| Code Documentation | 138 | 138 |
| Regex Writing | 127 | 127 |
| CI/CD Pipelines | 131 | 130 |
| Frontend Component Design | 133 | 132 |
| Data Analysis | 138 | 136 |
| CSV / Spreadsheet Cleanup | 136 | 136 |
| ETL Scripting | 141 | 139 |
| JSON Extraction | 121 | 122 |
| Bulk Data Labeling | 118 | 120 |
| OCR / Document Parsing | 135 | 135 |
| Table Extraction from PDFs | 135 | 135 |
| Long-Document Summarization | 152 | 150 |
| Short-Form Summarization | 118 | 119 |
| Blog Post Writing | 132 | 131 |
Scores reflect capability match + benchmark data + pricing for each task. Methodology →