As of: 2026-10-25 23:49 CET.
Researched and written by AI agents (Claude Opus 5.5 in Claude Code), with a human editor. How we work: https://postcutoff.com/about/
Canonical page: https://postcutoff.com/m/gemini-3-8-flash-lite-tts/

# Gemini 3.8 Flash-Lite TTS

Google DeepMind, Gemini 3 family. Status: current. Type: speech and audio. Released: 2026-09-22.

## How to call it

| Provider | Model id | Endpoint | Docs |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gemini API | `gemini-3.8-flash-lite-tts` | https://generativelanguage.googleapis.com/v1beta/models/gemini-3.8-flash-lite-tts:generateContent | https://ai.google.dev/gemini-api/docs/models/gemini-3.8-flash-lite-tts |
| Google AI Studio |  |  | https://aistudio.google.com |

## Pricing

- Input: $0.50 per 1M tokens
- Output: $6 per 1M tokens
- Batch input: $0.25
- Batch output: $3
- Unit as published: USD per 1M tokens (text in / audio out); introductory through 2026-12-31, then $1.00 / $12.00 (batch $0.50 / $6.00) from 2027-01-01; free tier available
- Source: https://ai.google.dev/gemini-api/docs/pricing
- Last checked: 2026-10-25

## Specs

- Input: text
- Output: audio
- Context window: 8,192 tokens
- Max output: 16,384 tokens
- Open weights: no
- Licence: proprietary

## Where it stands

- Newer speech and audio models in the registry since its release: 17. The 5 newest:
  - Eleven Realtime v1 Max / Mini (2026-10-20) https://postcutoff.com/m/eleven-realtime-v1-max/
  - Voxtral Mini Transcribe 3 (+ Mini Transcribe Realtime 3) (2026-10-20) https://postcutoff.com/m/voxtral-mini-transcribe-3/
  - Voxtral Small Transcribe 3 (2026-10-20) https://postcutoff.com/m/voxtral-small-transcribe-3/
  - Voxtral TTS 3 (Voxtral Mini TTS 3) (2026-10-20) https://postcutoff.com/m/voxtral-mini-tts-3/
  - GPT-Live-1.1 (2026-10-15) https://postcutoff.com/m/gpt-live-1-1/
- Before it from Google: Gemini 3.8 Live (2026-09-15) https://postcutoff.com/m/gemini-3-8-live/
- Closed weights; access is hosted only.

## What stands out

- Low-cost everyday TTS in 101 languages: Built to replace gemini-3.1-flash-tts-preview for everyday single-speaker generation; 101 languages; audio out at $6 per 1M tokens vs $9 for Gemini 3.8 Flash TTS (intro prices). Source: https://ai.google.dev/gemini-api/docs/models/gemini-3.8-flash-lite-tts
- Voice design and stored voice replication: Custom Voice design personas, prebuilt voices plus the Extended Voice Library, and persistent stored replicated voices (optional stateless keys). Source: https://ai.google.dev/gemini-api/docs/models/gemini-3.8-flash-lite-tts
- Hume VoiceEQ 0.914 (found after launch): Scored 0.914 on Hume's blind Real-World VoiceEQ leaderboard, just behind Gemini 3.8 Flash TTS (0.920) and ahead of Cartesia Sonic 3.6 (0.840). Source: https://www.hume.ai/blog/newly-released-google-s-gemini-3-8-flash-tts-tops-hume-s-real-world-voiceeq-leaderboard

## Notes

Artificial Analysis TTS arena (https://artificialanalysis.ai/text-to-speech/leaderboard), read 2026-10-25: rank #8, Elo 1252, listed at $11.0 per 1M characters (AA's normalisation; Google bills per 1M tokens). GA 2026-09-22 with gemini-3.8-flash-tts (per the Gemini API changelog, see entry). Supports Batch API, Flex and Priority inference; no Live API, function calling, thinking or caching. Default unary output WAV (audio/wav). Multi-speaker dialogue is recommended on the Flash TTS model instead. Model page last updated 2026-10-09; it does not label the model GA or preview. Output SynthID-watermarked (per Google's 3.8 TTS launch). Sibling: gemini-3-8-flash-tts.

The cheaper Gemini 3.8 text-to-speech model.

```bash
curl "https://generativelanguage.googleapis.com/v1beta/models/gemini-3.8-flash-lite-tts:generateContent" \
  -H "x-goog-api-key: $GEMINI_API_KEY" -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"contents":[{"parts":[{"text":"Say warmly: Welcome back!"}]}],
       "generationConfig":{"responseModalities":["AUDIO"]}}'
```

Sources: [model page](https://ai.google.dev/gemini-api/docs/models/gemini-3.8-flash-lite-tts), [pricing](https://ai.google.dev/gemini-api/docs/pricing), [launch blog](https://blog.google/innovation-and-ai/models-and-research/gemini-models/gemini-3-8-text-to-speech/), [AA leaderboard](https://artificialanalysis.ai/text-to-speech/leaderboard).

Model page: https://postcutoff.com/m/gemini-3-8-flash-lite-tts/