Recursive: Flint (free) vs Google Gemini 3.8 Flash: Live Promos, Pricing, Hidden Fees & Latency
Recursive: Flint (free) (recursive/flint-v1.0:free) 2026 Q4 Developer Promotion & Volume Credits
Official 2026 Q4 promotion for Recursive: Flint (free): Activate ephemeral prefix caching to slash input costs by 50% (down to 0/1M) or route via asynchronous Batch API for 50% off standard token rates.
Google Gemini 3.8 Flash (gemini-3.8-flash) — Google AI Startup Credits ($350K) & 90% 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.
In Etuki October 2026 FinOps telemetry comparing Recursive: Flint (free) (API ID: recursive/flint-v1.0:free) vs Google Gemini 3.8 Flash (API ID: gemini-3.8-flash), Recursive: Flint (free) offers lower standard input pricing at $0/1M tokens ($0/1M output), while Recursive: Flint (free) leads in cached prefix economics at $0/1M tokens (50% discount). Google Gemini 3.8 Flash achieves a 185ms faster P90 time-to-first-token latency (95ms vs 280ms).
Auto-discovered via live global telemetry registry.
⚠️ Intro Rate Expiration: Official $0.75/$3.75 (Cache $0.15/1M) introductory pricing ends 2026-12-31, increasing to $1.50/$7.50 in Jan 2027.
| Specification / FinOps Dimension | Recursive: Flint (free) | Google Gemini 3.8 Flash | Verified Advantage |
|---|---|---|---|
| Official Vendor API ID | recursive/flint-v1.0:free | gemini-3.8-flash | Pinned Snapshot IDs |
| Standard Input / Output (per 1M) | $0 / $0 | $0.75 / $3.75 | Recursive: Flint (free) |
| Cache Read Price (per 1M) | $0/1M (50% Off) | $0.075/1M (90% Off) | Recursive: Flint (free) |
| Context Window / Max Output | 256K In / 230K Out | 1000K In / 64K Out | Recursive: Flint (free) |
| P90 First-Token / Edge Latency | 280ms | 95ms | Google Gemini 3.8 Flash (-185ms) |
Flint is an open-weight mixture-of-experts model from Recursive, with about 2.5B active parameters out of 40B total, built by Recursive's autoresearch system Eureka Machine for cod
Google high-speed multimodal model at official Intro Price of $0.75/$3.75 (Cache Read $0.15/1M) valid through Dec 31, 2026; reprices to $1.50/$7.50 in 2027.
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 Recursive: Flint (free) to Google Gemini 3.8 Flash
Google high-speed multimodal model at official Intro Price of $0.75/$3.75 (Cache Read $0.15/1M) valid through Dec 31, 2026; reprices to $1.50/$7.50 in 2027. Verified P90 latency of 95ms.