Nano Banana 2 is available to developers through the AI Studio environment under a free tier that allows a limited number of generations per day without requiring a billing account. The free tier is intended for exploration, prototyping, and evaluating whether the model meets your application's quality requirements before committing to paid usage. The specific daily generation limit for free-tier access is documented in the AI Studio quota page and is subject to change, so checking the current limits directly in the console is recommended rather than relying on third-party sources.
When you exceed the free-tier quota, requests will return a quota exceeded error rather than silently queuing or degrading output quality. To continue generating beyond the free limit, you need to enable billing on your project, at which point usage is charged per image generated based on the published rate card for Nano Banana 2. The rate card differentiates pricing by output resolution and whether the request includes advanced options like style references or multi-image outputs. Billing is metered at the request level, so you pay only for what you generate with no minimum monthly commitment.
AI Studio also provides a web-based playground where you can test prompts interactively without writing code, which is useful for evaluating prompt phrasing and style options before embedding generation calls in your application. The playground shows the generated image alongside the request parameters, making it straightforward to iterate on prompt wording and compare outputs side by side. Free-tier quota applies equally to both the API and the playground, so time spent in the playground counts against the same daily limit as API requests.