Track Google Gemini Usage from Your Mac Menu Bar
Gemini's free tier caps requests at 15 per minute and 1,500 per day. A single API loop can trigger rate limiting instantly. AIUsageBar shows live RPM and daily totals so you can pace your usage without 429 surprises.
How Gemini rate limits work
- Gemini 2.0 Flash (free): 15 RPM, 1M TPM, 1,500 RPD. Limits apply per Google account, not per project.
- Gemini 2.5 Pro (free): 5 RPM, 250K TPM, 100 RPD — easy to exhaust when running evaluations.
- Daily limits reset at midnight Pacific time. Paid tier removes the RPD cap entirely.
What AIUsageBar shows you
- Live requests-per-minute vs. your RPM limit
- Daily request count vs. RPD cap
- Token usage and estimated API cost
- Rate limit warnings before 429 errors fire
What is Google Gemini?
Gemini is Google's AI model family, available through several different products. Google AI Studio provides free API access for developers. Vertex AI is Google's enterprise platform for production deployments with SLA-backed quotas. Gemini.google.com is the consumer chat interface, and Google One Advanced is a subscription that unlocks higher limits and the latest models.
The model lineup includes Gemini 2.0 Flash (fast and cheap, the default for most API use), Gemini 2.5 Pro (Google's most capable reasoning model), and Gemini Ultra (top-tier, limited availability). Each model has its own distinct rate limits, which vary significantly — making Gemini one of the more complex providers to track without tooling.
Gemini Rate Limits: A Full Breakdown
Google AI Studio (free tier)
- Gemini 2.0 Flash: 15 RPM, 1M TPM, 1,500 RPD
- Gemini 2.5 Pro: 5 RPM, 250K TPM, 100 RPD
- Gemini 1.5 Pro: 2 RPM, 32K TPD
RPM (requests per minute), TPM (tokens per minute), and RPD (requests per day) are tracked separately. You can hit any one of them independently. The RPD limits reset at midnight Pacific time.
Important: limits are per account, not per project
If you have multiple Google Cloud projects using the same Google account's API key, they all share the same free tier quota. A developer running multiple side projects from one account can exhaust the Gemini 2.5 Pro limit of 100 RPD very quickly across combined usage.
Paid tiers
Gemini 2.0 Flash: $0.10/1M input tokens, $0.40/1M output tokens. Gemini 2.5 Pro: $1.25/1M input tokens up to 200K context, $10/1M output tokens. Moving to paid removes the RPD cap and substantially raises RPM limits.
Gemini Advanced (Google One, $19.99/month)
Raises limits for the consumer Gemini interface. For API usage, Google recommends Vertex AI for production workloads needing SLA-backed quotas and higher throughput.
Why Tracking Gemini Usage Matters
Gemini's RPM limits are low enough that they can be hit instantly in a loop. 15 requests per minute on Gemini 2.0 Flash means a script making one request every 3 seconds will trigger rate limiting. The 5 RPM limit on Gemini 2.5 Pro is especially easy to hit for developers doing rapid iteration.
The daily limits are equally surprising. The Gemini 2.5 Pro RPD cap of 100 requests per day sounds generous for a human user but is trivially easy to exhaust for a developer running evaluations or testing a RAG pipeline. Once you hit 100 RPD on a free account, you're blocked until midnight Pacific time — regardless of how low your current RPM is.
Google's API returns a 429 error when limits are hit, but there's no native dashboard that gives you real-time visibility into how close you are to each limit type. You find out you're rate-limited when the error fires, not before.
How AIUsageBar Tracks Gemini
AIUsageBar shows a live RPM gauge for your Gemini usage, your daily request count versus the RPD cap, and your token spend. The RPM gauge updates in real time so you can see when you're approaching the per-minute ceiling before the 429 hits. The daily counter resets at midnight Pacific.
Frequently Asked Questions
What's the difference between RPM and RPD limits?
RPM (requests per minute) limits burst traffic — hitting the Gemini 2.5 Pro 5 RPM limit means you can't make more than 5 calls in any 60-second window. RPD (requests per day) limits total volume — the Gemini 2.5 Pro 100 RPD cap means once you've made 100 calls in a day, you're blocked until reset. You can hit either limit independently.
Are Gemini AI Studio limits shared across projects?
Yes — free tier quotas are per Google account, not per project. All projects using API keys from the same Google account share the same quota pool. If you have three projects collectively hitting 100 Gemini 2.5 Pro requests per day, the quota is exhausted even if no single project made more than 40 calls.
Does Gemini Advanced give higher API limits?
Gemini Advanced (via Google One) raises limits for the Gemini consumer chat interface. For API usage, Google AI Studio free tier limits are separate. For higher API limits with guaranteed quotas, Google recommends moving to Vertex AI on a paid GCP project.
When do Gemini daily limits reset?
At midnight Pacific time (UTC-8, or UTC-7 during daylight saving). This is the same for all Google AI Studio users regardless of their timezone.