"Even at 7,500 KRW a Month, No Access to Gemini 'Pro'...Google Restructures Pricing Plans"

Starting October 9, Free Users Lose Access to Flash

Pro Model Now Requires a Subscription of KRW 29,000 or More per Month

As Google restructures the pricing plans for its artificial intelligence (AI) service Gemini, free users and those with low-cost subscriptions will no longer have access to the “Pro” model.

On October 4 (local time), Google announced via its customer support notice that starting this month, the accessible AI model tiers will be downgraded according to each subscription plan.

Previously, even free users could access certain features of the Gemini Pro model, but going forward, the “AI Pro” plan—which costs $19.99 per month (KRW 29,000 in Korea)—will be required to access it. Not only free users but also subscribers to the lower-priced “AI Plus” plan, which costs $4.99 per month (KRW 7,500 in Korea), will lose access to the Pro model.

Free users will also lose access to “Gemini Flash,” the lightweight model, and will only be able to use “Gemini Flash-Light,” which offers even lower performance. Free access to both the Flash and Pro models will be blocked beginning October 9. Subscribers will be notified separately via email about when the new policy will take effect for them.

Instead, Google has enabled users to choose the inference level of their model among “Low,” “Medium,” or “High.” If the user selects a higher inference level, better answers can be obtained even from lower-performance models; however, this will result in the user hitting Google’s pre-set usage limits more quickly. Google currently operates a usage-based limit that resets every five hours. Subscribers to the AI Pro and higher-tier “AI Ultra” plan, which starts at $99.99 per month, will also be able to use the “Deep Sync” feature, which allows inference using multiple models simultaneously.

This restructuring has been implemented ahead of the official release of a new top-tier model, and is effectively seen as a price hike.

After launching “Gemini 3.1 Pro” in February, Google showed little progress in developing the Pro model for around seven months until releasing the flagship “Gemini 4 Argon” on September 30. This model is known for its heavy use of computing resources. Google is expected to actively attract more users to its higher-priced plans with this new model. However, as free users are now barred not only from the Pro model but also from even lightweight versions, dissatisfaction among them is likely to increase further.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.