Here's How Often You Can Use Google Gemini's Free Plan Each Day
Since releasing Gemini, Google has played the details of its usage rates close to the chest –- as has OpenAI with ChatGPT. Now, though, we finally have a better idea of what Google offers in each of its Gemini plans, and it's straight from the horse's mouth.
Thanks to an updated Google support document, Gemini users can finally plan their usage of the AI-powered chatbot better by knowing how much they're getting. This means those vague "limited access" comments are no longer all we have to go by, and you won't have to wait on the community to tell you just how much they were able to use Gemini based on their own math and observations.
Instead of vague verbiage, Google clearly notes that free users — anyone who doesn't pay for one of Google's AI plans — will be able to use Gemini 2.5 Pro with up to five prompts per day. Free accounts are also limited to five Deep Research reports using Gemini 2.5 Flash each month. Finally, free users can expect to make use of up to 100 image generations (including edits and remixes) per day. The context window for free accounts is also limited to 32,000 tokens. Google lists 2.5 Flash as "general access" across the board, with no specific notes about usage limits. All tiers will be able to generate up to 20 audio overviews per day.
Here's what paying for Gemini gets you
The numbers shared by Google indicate that the limit increases for paid accounts are actually fairly moderate. Google AI Pro customers will get up to 100 prompts per day with 2.5 Pro, and up to 20 Deep Research reports per day using 2.5 Pro. Both the Google AI Pro and Google AI Ultra plan will provide users with up to 1,000 image generations a day, as well as three videos a day using Veo 3 Fast.
Those with the top-of-the-line Google AI Ultra plan have access to up to 500 prompts per day with 2.5 Pro, as well as 200 reports per day of Deep Research using 2.5 Pro. AI Ultra also gets access to 10 prompts per day for Deep Think, with a maximum 192,000 token context window, and five video generations per day using Veo 3. Both AI Pro and AI Ultra will also get access to a 1 million token context window for general prompting.
ChatGPT vs. Gemini free account usage limits
Now that we have solid numbers for Gemini, it's a bit easier to compare the usage you get with a free Gemini account to what you get with a free ChatGPT account. Unfortunately, ChatGPT's usage limits are still a little vague, but they do have some different timing methods compared to what Google is doing with Gemini.
For starters, despite GPT-5 being widely available, free ChatGPT users are only able to send 10 messages every five hours, according to OpenAI's official documentation. After hitting that limit, chats will automatically switch over to GPT-5 mini until the clock resets. Furthermore, free users are able to send just one GPT-5 Thinking message per day. As for fast context windows, they're limited to 16,000 tokens for free users.
If you want to keep using GPT-5 beyond those initial 10 messages, you'll need to upgrade to a paid ChatGPT Plus account to continue. OpenAI allows ChatGPT Plus users to send up to 160 messages using GPT-5 every 3 hours.