AI Studio uses your API account behind the scenes, and it is subject to normal API limits. When you signup for AI Studio, it creates a Google Cloud free tier project with "gen-lang-client-" prefix behind the scenes. You can link a billing account at the bottom of the "get an api key page".

Also note that AI studio via default free tier API access doesn't seem to fall within "commercial use" in Google's terms of service, which would mean that your prompts can be reviewed by humans and used for training. All info AFAIK.

> AI Studio uses your API account behind the scenes

This is not true for the Gemini 2.5 Pro Preview model, at least. Although this model API is not available on the Free Tier [1], you can still use it on AI Studio.

[1] https://ai.google.dev/gemini-api/docs/pricing

> AI studio via default free tier API access doesn't seem to fall within "commercial use" in Google's terms of service, which would mean that your prompts can be reviewed by humans and used for training. All info AFAIK.

Seconded.

I think AI Studio uses the API, so rate limits are extremely high and almost impossible for a normal human to reach if using the paid preview model.

As far as I know AI Studio is always free, even on pay accounts, and you can definetly hit the rate limit.

I much prefer Gemini over chapgpt, but they recently introduced a limit of 100 messages a day on a pro plan :( aistudio is probably still fine

I've heard it's only on mobile? I was using gemini for work on desktop for at least 6 hours yesterday (definitely over 100 back and forths) for work and did not get hit with any rate limits

Either way, Google's transparency with this is very poor - I saw the limits from a VP's tweet

Is there a reason not to just use the API through openrouter or something?