Side-by-side comparison of pricing, 12 benchmarks, and generation speed.
| Metric | Gemma 3n E4B Instruct | Nova Micro |
|---|---|---|
| Input ($/M tokens) | $0.06 | $0.04 |
| Output ($/M tokens) | $0.12 | $0.14 |
Verdict. Gemma 3n E4B Instruct and Nova Micro split the benchmark comparison evenly at 1–1. The tiebreaker here is price, speed, and what you actually run them on.
Pricing. Both models sit in the budget bracket for output-token pricing. At 0.9× the per-million-token cost, Gemma 3n E4B Instruct is meaningfully cheaper if your traffic is output-heavy (long completions, document generation, agent loops). Gemma 3n E4B Instruct makes more sense when output volume is low and absolute reasoning quality justifies the premium.
Strengths. Gemma 3n E4B Instruct is strongest on Coding Index (3.2), Intelligence Index (1.0). Nova Micro leads on Intelligence Index (4.4).
Speed. On throughput, Nova Micro generates tokens at 282 tok/s versus 55 tok/s — about 80% faster. On time-to-first-token, Nova Micro responds in 870ms vs 1500ms, which matters most for chat-style UIs.
Provider. Google and Amazon sell to overlapping but distinct developer audiences: Google tends to ship frontier reasoning models with premium positioning, while Amazon often prices more aggressively. Your existing vendor relationships, billing, and SLA preferences may matter as much as the raw numbers above.
Workload cost. Workload scenarios (per million requests at 30M input + 15M output tokens): Gemma 3n E4B Instruct costs $3.60 ($43/year); Nova Micro costs $3.30 ($40/year). At a smaller 5M-input/2M-output scale (single-developer tool or prototype): Gemma 3n E4B Instruct ≈ $0.54/run, Nova Micro ≈ $0.48/run. At agent/realtime scale (200M input / 100M output per million requests): Gemma 3n E4B Instruct ≈ $24/run, Nova Micro ≈ $22/run. Nova Micro becomes more attractive at higher volume — the absolute per-token pricing difference compounds when you ship at scale.
Recommendation. Both models have legitimate use cases — the right answer depends on whether you are optimizing for benchmark ceiling, latency, or unit cost. Start with the cheaper / faster model, evaluate against your specific task, and only switch if the upgrade shows a meaningful lift.
Head-to-head deltas
Data from Artificial Analysis API — 12 benchmarks
Nova Micro is cheaper overall. Its blended price (3:1 input/output ratio) is $0.07/M tokens vs $0.07/M for Gemma 3n E4B Instruct.
It's a tie — both models win 1 benchmarks each across 12 evaluated categories. See the detailed benchmark chart above for per-category results.
Nova Micro generates tokens faster at 282 tok/s vs 55 tok/s. However, Nova Micro has lower time-to-first-token (0.87s vs 1.50s).
Choose based on your priorities: Nova Micro for lower cost, both perform similarly on benchmarks, and Nova Micro for faster generation. For latency-sensitive apps, check the TTFT comparison above.