The trick: Temporary As Permanent

Google cut Gemini Flash's price in half.

The half grows back on January 1.

Issue 814 August 20266 receipts3 min

Gemini 3.7 Flash, shipped three weeks after 3.6 Flash, is Google's most intelligent workhorse model yet, posts big benchmark gains over its predecessor, and costs half what 3.6 Flash did per million tokens.

Before you read on. Your call?

the capability part mostly survives the referee. Artificial Analysis, on day zero, scores it 56 on the Intelligence Index, a top-20 intelligence rank, and first overall on output speed at 340.1 tokens per second. The price part is a teaser: Google's own footnote says the introductory rate expires December 31, 2026, after which $1.50 in and $7.50 out apply, which is double the launch rate and exactly the original 3.6 Flash price. The benchmark wins are all against Google's own three-week-old model; no competitor appears in the post.

340.1TOKENS/SEC

56AA INTELLIGENCE INDEX

$7.50OUTPUT PRICE ONCE THE TEASER EXPIRES JAN 1

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The trick has a name

We call it Temporary As Permanent: a moratorium or intro price reported as the settled state. You'll see it again. Learn to spot it →

Say this in tomorrow's meeting“Fastest model on the independent index, real gains over 3.6. The half price expires December 31; after that it costs exactly what the old model did.”

Receipts

Supports blog.google: with an introductory price of half the original 3.6 Flash cost per million tokens
Context blog.google: as seen in FrontierCode 1.1 Main (43.6% vs 34.4%)
Refutes blog.google: Introductory pricing expires on December 31, 2026. Starting January 1, 2027, $1.50/1M input tokens and $7.50/1M output tokens will apply.
Context web.archive.org: scores 56 on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, placing it well above average
Context web.archive.org: 340.1 output tokens per second
Refutes news.ycombinator.com: It's scheduled to double in price on december 31, 2026, but who would anticipate still using this model five months from now?

Open the Receipts Pack → What each source proves, every figure traced, and what would change our verdict.