Google Gemini 3.8 Flash vs Upstage: Solar Mini 4: Live Promos, Pricing, Hidden Fees & Latency
Verified 2026 FinOps benchmark comparing Google Gemini 3.8 Flash (gemini-3.8-flash) vs Upstage: Solar Mini 4 (upstage/solar-mini4). Simulate cache read multipliers, context cliffs, MAU bills, and P90 latency.
Google Gemini 3.8 Flash (gemini-3.8-flash) — Google AI Startup Credits ($350K) & 80% Cache Promo
Google DeepMind is currently subsidizing Gemini 4 Argon at 50% off standard rates ($2.00/1M input & $10.00/1M output instead of $4/$20) until November 30, 2026, alongside 95% off Context Caching ($0.10/1M) and up to $350,000 in Google for Startups Cloud/Vertex AI credits.
Upstage: Solar Mini 4 (upstage/solar-mini4) 2026 Q4 Developer Promotion & Volume Credits
Official 2026 Q4 promotion for Upstage: Solar Mini 4: Activate ephemeral prefix caching to slash input costs by 50% (down to $0.025/1M) or route via asynchronous Batch API for 50% off standard token rates.
In Etuki October 2026 FinOps telemetry comparing Google Gemini 3.8 Flash (API ID: gemini-3.8-flash) vs Upstage: Solar Mini 4 (API ID: upstage/solar-mini4), Upstage: Solar Mini 4 offers lower standard input pricing at $0.05/1M tokens ($0.2/1M output), while Upstage: Solar Mini 4 leads in cached prefix economics at $0.025/1M tokens (50% discount). Google Gemini 3.8 Flash achieves a 145ms faster P90 time-to-first-token latency (135ms vs 280ms).
Enable Prompt Context Caching & Batch API to reduce repeated system prompt input token burn by 50%-97.5%.
Auto-discovered via live global telemetry registry.
| Specification / FinOps Dimension | Google Gemini 3.8 Flash | Upstage: Solar Mini 4 | Verified Advantage |
|---|---|---|---|
| Official Vendor API ID | gemini-3.8-flash | upstage/solar-mini4 | Pinned Snapshot IDs |
| Standard Input / Output (per 1M) | $0.15 / $0.6 | $0.05 / $0.2 | Upstage: Solar Mini 4 |
| Cache Read Price (per 1M) | $0.03/1M (80% Off) | $0.025/1M (50% Off) | Upstage: Solar Mini 4 |
| Context Window / Max Output | 1000K In / 64K Out | 512K In / 128K Out | Upstage: Solar Mini 4 |
| P90 First-Token / Edge Latency | 135ms | 280ms | Google Gemini 3.8 Flash (-145ms) |
High-frequency multimodal, TTS, and live streaming model optimized for low-latency production workloads.
Solar Mini 4 is Upstage's compact, cost-efficient language model, a 35B-parameter mixture-of-experts with 3B active parameters and a 524K context window. It is built for agentic us
Real-Time Stack Cost & Hidden-Fee Simulator (MAU / Token / Egress / GMV)
Calibrated with Reddit r/FinOps & r/devops telemetry: Includes Context Caching, Bandwidth Egress, and MoR Tax
🛰️Switch from Google Gemini 3.8 Flash to Upstage: Solar Mini 4
Solar Mini 4 is Upstage's compact, cost-efficient language model, a 35B-parameter mixture-of-experts with 3B active parameters and a 524K context window. It is built for agentic us Verified P90 latency of 280ms.