Quick Answer
Last verified:
Estimate

Vertex AI Embeddings costs $0.07 to $0.25 per per million tokens as of July 2026, with 4 plans available. Pricing depends on your chosen tier, contract length, and negotiated discounts.

Use the interactive pricing calculator to estimate your exact cost based on team size and requirements.

  • Free tier: No free tier available

Vertex AI Embeddings offers 4 pricing tiers: text-embedding-004 (Standard), text-embedding-004 (Batch), Gemini Embedding (gemini-embedding-001), Gemini Embedding 2 (multimodal).

Last verified:
Know Before You Buy — See Vertex AI Embeddings Plans

Vertex AI Embeddings lists $0.075-$0.25/per million tokens, but hidden costs like implementation and support add to the total as of July 2026. Key hidden costs: idle endpoints, data storage fees, network usage charges (egress). Verified from 1 sources by CostBench.

Hidden Costs Breakdown

1

Idle Endpoints

high implementation

Charges accrue continuously for deployed models on Vertex AI endpoints, even if no requests are being served, until the endpoint is explicitly undeployed.

industry

For example, a forgotten A100 endpoint can generate an invoice of approximately $2,642 per month, or even up to $7,889 for a single forgotten endpoint.

2

Data Storage Fees

medium addon

Storing models in Vertex AI Model Registry, datasets in Cloud Storage, and vector indexes in Vector Search all incur data storage fees.

industry

Standard Cloud Storage costs around $0.020/GB-month, while SSD-backed storage is about $0.170/GB-month.

3

Network Usage Charges (Egress)

medium addon

Moving data out of Google Cloud incurs egress fees, which can lead to unexpected charges from large batch prediction jobs or frequent model downloads.

industry

Large batch prediction jobs or frequent model downloads can lead to unexpected charges.

4

Long Conversation Context

high overage

For generative AI models, every turn in a long conversation resends prior context as input tokens, leading to significantly higher billing.

industry

Long Conversation Context: For generative AI models, every turn in a long conversation resends prior context as input tokens, leading to significantly higher billing than a simple per-call rate might suggest.

5

Associated Google Cloud Services

medium addon

Using Vertex AI Embeddings often involves other Google Cloud services, such as data storage, network usage, and Vertex AI Vector Search, which bills for compute nodes.

industry

Standard Cloud Storage costs around $0.020/GB-month, while SSD-backed storage is about $0.170/GB-month.

6

Management Fees

low addon

Vertex AI may add management fees on top of underlying Compute Engine costs.

industry

Management Fees: Vertex AI may add management fees on top of underlying Compute Engine costs.

7

Training and Prediction Compute

medium implementation

Fine-tuning embedding models or running custom prediction jobs incurs costs for compute resources like vCPU, RAM, GPUs, and TPUs, billed per node-hour.

industry

Large batch prediction jobs or frequent model downloads can lead to unexpected charges.

8

Compute Resources for Training

medium implementation

Underlying compute resources for model training infrastructure can cost between $2.50 and $4.00 per hour.

industry

Vertex AI Vector Search (formerly Matching Engine) pricing is infrastructure-based, billed per node-hour, with a moderately sized index on three replicas costing roughly $700-$800/month.

9

Prediction Request Costs

high overage

Each prediction request adds $0.0001 to $0.01, depending on model size and latency requirements, with 1 million predictions ranging from $100 to $10,000 at high volumes.

industry

At high volumes, 1 million predictions could range from $100 to $10,000.

10

Token Consumption (Gemini 2.5 Pro)

high overage

Gemini 2.5 Pro costs $1.25 per million input tokens (for contexts ≤200K) and $10.00 per million output tokens, with larger context windows doubling these rates.

industry

For instance, Gemini 2.5 Pro costs $1.25 per million input tokens (for contexts ≤200K) and $10.00 per million output tokens.

11

Vertex AI Vector Search Infrastructure

high addon

Vertex AI Vector Search pricing is infrastructure-based, billed per node-hour, with a moderately sized index on three replicas costing roughly $700-$800/month.

industry

Vertex AI Vector Search (formerly Matching Engine) pricing is infrastructure-based, billed per node-hour, with a moderately sized index on three replicas costing roughly $700-$800/month.

12

Vector Search Index Build/Update

medium implementation

Index build/update (batch) costs $3.00 per GiB processed, and streaming updates cost $0.45 per GiB inserted.

industry

Index build/update (batch) costs $3.00 per GiB processed, and streaming updates cost $0.45 per GiB inserted.

13

Logging and Monitoring

low support

These are common operational costs in cloud environments.

industry

Logging and Monitoring: While not explicitly detailed with figures, these are common operational costs in cloud environments.

14

Compute Node Costs for Vector Search

high addon

Utilizing Vertex AI Vector Search incurs costs for compute nodes hosting the vector index, billed per node-hour, varying by machine type, index size, and replica count.

industry

The cost varies based on machine type, index size, and replica count.

15

Custom Model Training/Fine-tuning

high training

Custom model training or fine-tuning of embedding models incurs separate charges based on compute resources and duration of use, often starting around $21.25/hour per custom training node.

industry

Model Training and Prediction Costs: While the Embedding APIs generate embeddings from pre-trained models, if buyers opt for custom model training or fine-tuning of embedding models, these activities incur separate charges based on compute resources (e.g., node-hours for custom training, often starting around $21.25/hour per custom training node) and duration of use.

16

Vertex AI Pipeline Costs

low implementation

Orchestrating embedding generation and related tasks through Vertex AI Pipelines incurs a charge of $0.03 per run, in addition to associated training/storage compute charges.

industry

Pipeline Costs: Orchestrating embedding generation and related tasks through Vertex AI Pipelines incurs a charge per run, for example, $0.03 per run, in addition to associated training/storage compute charges.

17

Generative AI Support Charges

medium support

For generative AI features that might leverage embeddings, charges are applied per 1,000 characters of input and output.

industry

Network Usage Charges: Transferring data to and from Vertex AI Embeddings, and between other Google Cloud services, will incur network egress fees.

Frequently Asked Questions

01 What hidden costs should I budget for with Vertex AI Embeddings?

Beyond the license fee, budget for: Idle Endpoints (up to $7,889); Data Storage Fees ($0.170/GB-month); Network Usage Charges (Egress) (up to $0.23/GB); Associated Google Cloud Services ($800 per month); Training and Prediction Compute ($2.93 per hour); Compute Resources for Training ($2.50-$4.00 per hour); Prediction Request Costs ($100-$10,000 per 1 million predictions); Token Consumption (Gemini 2.5 Pro) ($1.25-$10.00 per million tokens); Vertex AI Vector Search Infrastructure ($700-$800/month); Vector Search Index Build/Update ($0.45-$3.00 per GiB); Custom Model Training/Fine-tuning ($21.25/hour per custom training node); Vertex AI Pipeline Costs ($0.03 per run). Exact totals depend on your deployment size and negotiated terms.

02 Does Vertex AI Embeddings charge for implementation?

Vertex AI Embeddings implementation is not included in the license cost. Charges accrue continuously for deployed models on Vertex AI endpoints, even if no requests are being served, until the endpoint is explicitly undeployed.. Estimated impact: up to $7,889.

03 How much does Vertex AI Embeddings support cost?

These are common operational costs in cloud environments..

04 Are there overage or storage costs with Vertex AI Embeddings?

For generative AI models, every turn in a long conversation resends prior context as input tokens, leading to significantly higher billing..

05 What add-ons cost extra with Vertex AI Embeddings?

Add-on pricing for Vertex AI Embeddings varies by feature. The sourced cost breakdown above lists any verified add-on costs we have.

Now You Know the Real Cost — See Vertex AI Embeddings Plans

Check current Vertex AI Embeddings pricing

Prices and terms change; verify against the live pricing page.

See Vertex AI Embeddings Pricing