Nano Banana 2: what it costs per image, and how to run it on a Mac

What is Nano Banana 2?

Nano Banana 2 is Google's state-of-the-art image generation and editing model: one model that both creates images from text and rewrites existing ones from plain-English instructions. It renders at 0.5K, 1K, 2K or 4K resolution and takes aspect ratios from square out to extreme 8:1 banners, or picks the ratio itself from your prompt.

It sits in a family of three: Nano Banana 2 (the all-round flagship), Nano Banana Pro (the deep-reasoning tier, tagged for realism and typography) and Nano Banana 2 Lite (the sub-2-second efficiency model). All three are served by fal.ai, which is how they reach the desktop.

How much does Nano Banana 2 cost per image?

Through fal.ai, Nano Banana 2 bills $0.08 per image at its base rate. We verified that against fal's live pricing on August 24, 2026. Resolution tiers on our dated rate card run 1K $0.08 · 2K $0.12 · 4K $0.16, so even a 4K render costs less than most subscription studios charge in credits for a single 1K image.

Those are fal's raw rates, billed to your own key. There are no Asset Lab credits and no markup. The app shows the exact figure on the Generate button before you click. If you're weighing raw prices against subscription credits, we've run that math across the whole category.

Can I run Nano Banana 2 on a Mac?

Yes, natively, in Asset Lab, a $49 one-time desktop app for macOS 13+ on Apple Silicon and Linux x86-64. It calls fal's API directly with your own key (stored only on your machine), renders Nano Banana 2 alongside 26 other frontier image models in the studio, and saves everything to a local vault at ~/Pictures/Asset Lab.

Setup takes about five minutes with the guided Fal Connect flow, and there's no account and no analytics. The hero image on this page came out of exactly that workflow: prompt, price on the button, render, gallery.

What's the difference between Nano Banana 2, Pro and Lite?

Nano Banana 2 ($0.08/image) is the default: the all-round flagship for everyday generation and editing. Nano Banana Pro ($0.15/image) spends more compute reasoning about your prompt. Fal tags it for realism and typography, and it's the one to reach for when text has to be legible or a scene has to hold together logically.

Nano Banana 2 Lite is the efficiency play: sub-2-second latency, cost-effective generation, fast multi-turn local edits and 14 supported aspect ratios. In Asset Lab it's the drafting model: explore wide on Lite, then re-render the keeper on 2 or Pro. All three sit in the same picker, so switching is one click, not a new tab.

Can Nano Banana 2 edit existing images?

Yes. Editing is half the model. The Edit endpoint takes an existing image plus a plain-English instruction ("make the bottle in the red box emerald green") and bills the same $0.08 per image. No masks, no layers, no prompt syntax.

Asset Lab adds region markup on top: draw numbered boxes on the source, type a short note per box, and the app composes the edit instruction automatically. Combined with reference images for consistent characters and products, it's the fastest way we know to iterate a still without re-rolling the whole frame.

Written by the Asset Lab team, the people who build Asset Lab. We sell a tool that runs this model, so every price above is linked to a source you can check, and the hero was rendered with the model itself.