AI Model Watch
Models / Google

Imagen 4

Retired

Text-to-image model billed per image ($0.04 per image, paid tier only — no free tier), so the per-token price fields are N/A. Google's pricing-page banner: "Imagen 4 models (imagen-4.0-generate-001, imagen-4.0-ultra-generate-001, imagen-4.0-fast-generate-001) are deprecated and will be shut down on August 17, 2026; migrate to Gemini 2.5 Flash Image to avoid service disruption." The deprecations table named gemini-3.1-flash-image as the recommended replacement until 2026-10-06 and re-points it to gemini-nano-banana-2.1 on the 2026-10-07 read — replacement follows the table, which carries the field as data. Google publishes shutdown dates as "the earliest possible dates on which a model might be retired"; already-shut-down models are marked with a grey row on the deprecations page. CONFIRMED RETIRED 2026-10-02 on the only signal this catalog accepts for a Google shutdown: the imagen-4.0-generate-001 row on the deprecations page now carries a literal class="row-gray" on its <tr>, and that page's own legend reads "Already-shutdown models are indicated with gray backgrounds". check-lifecycle-drift.mjs reads that marker and reported Google stating "shut-down" against our "deprecated". The row was still ungreyed on the 2026-09-29 read, so the marker appeared between 2026-09-29 and 2026-10-02 (the page says "Last updated 2026-10-01 UTC"). Until 2026-10-02 the row was held at deprecated, deliberately: a retirement filed on 2026-08-31 was reverted the same day because it rested on the rate row disappearing from the PRICING page, an inference, while the deprecations row was still ungreyed. The published shutdown date of August 17, 2026 had passed 46 days before the grey row appeared, which is why a passed date is never sufficient on its own.

Imagen 4 by Google is tracked live in our LLM catalog. It has been retired (shut down 17 Aug 2026); the recommended migration is Gemini Nano Banana 2.1.

Last verified: 24 Oct 2026 · sourced from official provider documentation

Retired on 17 Aug 2026

Lifecycle warning

This model has been retired. Recommended migration: Gemini Nano Banana 2.1.

Read the Imagen 4 migration guide → replacement & cheapest alternatives

Provider
Google
Status
Retired
Input price
—
Output price
—
Cached input
—
Blended price
—
Context window
—
Max output
—
Modality
text-in, image-out
Open weights
No — API only
Knowledge cutoff
—
Released
24 Jun 2025
API string
imagen-4.0-generate-001

Source: Google official documentation ↗

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FAQ

Imagen 4 — questions & answers

Is Imagen 4 still available?

Imagen 4 has been retired and is no longer available. Its scheduled shutdown date is 17 Aug 2026. The recommended migration is Gemini Nano Banana 2.1.

Does Imagen 4 support image or vision input?

Our catalog lists Imagen 4's modalities as text-in, image-out; image/vision input is not among them.

Can I self-host Imagen 4?

No — Imagen 4 is proprietary. Its weights are not publicly released, so it is available only through Google's API (or hosted partners), not for self-hosting.

What is the API model string for Imagen 4?

The API model identifier for Imagen 4 is "imagen-4.0-generate-001" when calling Google's API.