Google published Nano Banana 2.1, a minor update focused on image fidelity and edit stability rather than major feature additions.

Core changes and model base

The release moves the model base to Gemini 3.6 Flash, claiming improved image rendering, more precise edits, and better preservation of subject appearance across sequential edits.

Developers report tightened performance on panoramas at 2K and 4K, and reduced textual artifacts. In practice, differences from Nano Banana 2.0 appear modest.

Pricing and API output

The API now returns 1K images priced at $0.0336 per output, excluding input and thinking costs, which is approximately half the previous rate.

Edit Drift evaluation

Google assessed edit stability using the Edit Drift benchmark, where a single photograph is edited 40 times and changes to untouched regions are measured.

Nano Banana 2.1 achieved a preservation score of 54.9, compared with 56.0 for Nano Banana 2.0 and 96.8 for FLUX 3; higher scores indicate better preservation of unchanged areas.

For FLUX 3, evaluators supplied explicit coordinates of the edited region. The Nano Banana runs lacked that parameter in the used API, so evaluators specified the target object inside prompts instead.

Practical implications

Despite incremental improvements, images still exhibit visible drift after multiple sequential edits, and preservation scores indicate room for improvement relative to some competitors.

The comparison reflects a single-pass benchmark on one photograph and measures stability of untouched regions rather than the subjective quality of applied edits.