Imagen 4.0 vs Nano Banana 2

What each one accepts

Rates and clip costs

Charged from a prepaid USD balance, no taxes added. A failed generation is $0.

Both come from Google, yet Nano Banana 2 covers far more ground: it edits photos, blends as many as 14 reference pictures, can hand back 4 results from one call and goes all the way to 4K. Imagen 4 only turns a prompt into a picture, with no resolution control. Nano Banana 2 is also the cheaper one per image here, so Imagen 4 stays in my toolbox only for its look and for crisp English lettering.

When to pick Imagen 4

• Lettering in English, like a two-word headline on a flyer. Among the 32 models I tested, its letters were some of the cleanest.
• A 16:9 header image for an article when you have no source photo.
• A bright, clean photographic style with no editing step.
• The leanest API request you can write, with only prompt and aspect_ratio.

When to pick Nano Banana 2

• You edit your own photos or build a scene from several references.
• You want a few variants back from one request.
• The output must be 2K or 4K.
• You need extreme banners, 8:1 wide or 1:8 tall.
• The graphic carries Polish text, which came out error-free in my typography test.

Differences you will notice

• Inputs. Imagen 4.0 takes nothing but words: you cannot attach a picture or a mask. Nano Banana 2 can start from words, from images, or from both, with 14 images at most.
• Price per image. Imagen 4 is $0.115 per image at any ratio. Nano Banana 2 costs from $0.07 per image for 1K and rises for 2K and 4K. Imagen costs about 1.6 times a 1K Nano Banana 2 image, and the larger tiers close that gap. Each extra result requested through num_images is billed on its own, which puts a set of four 1K variants at roughly 2.4 Imagen pictures. The 0.5K tier is billed like 1K.
• Resolution and batch. Imagen 4 has no resolution field and returns one image. Nano Banana 2 offers 0.5K, 1K, 2K and 4K and up to 4 images.
• Aspect ratios. Imagen 4 has five: 1:1, 4:3, 3:4, 16:9 and 9:16, defaulting to 16:9. Nano Banana 2 has 14, down to 1:8 and up to 8:1, defaulting to 1:1.
• Prompt. Google lists English and Chinese for Imagen 4, with a 4,000-character cap. Nano Banana 2 allows eight times as much text.

How to decide

In my 32-model test on the Polish blog (run with another provider) both produced tidy, well-lit pictures, without the grain and wet sheen many other models added. Imagen 4 correctly spelled a word the models could not have known on a sign, and answered in about 9-12 s against 13-17 s for Nano Banana 2. Later, in my image generator ranking, Nano Banana 2 earned 8.6/10 overall and a perfect score on a Polish storefront. Imagen 4 has not had a Polish text test from me. For most work Nano Banana 2 wins; Imagen 4 stays for plain prompt-only images. More on lettering in AI text in images, and all tiers on the pricing page.

Questions

Can I fix a photo with Imagen 4?

No. It does not accept images at all. Use Nano Banana 2 or Nano Banana Pro for edits.

Should I write Imagen prompts in English?

Google lists English and Chinese for Imagen 4, so I translate mine to English. Nano Banana 2 handles much longer prompts, and text I put in quotes came out with correct Polish spelling.

Does each extra variant in Nano Banana 2 cost the same?

Yes. Every image in num_images is billed at the tier rate, and a failed request costs nothing.

Samples from the makers

These clips and images come from the vendors, not from my runs.