Google Is Building an AI Ultra Lite Plan to Fill the Gap Between Pro and Ultra
A macOS Gemini app teardown found strings pointing to a new 'Google AI Ultra Lite' subscription tier sitting between the $20 AI Pro and $250 AI Ultra plans. A usage dashboard tracking token budgets is also in development.
Google is developing a new subscription tier for Gemini, sitting between the current AI Pro ($19.99/month) and AI Ultra ($249.99/month) plans. The discovery comes from a teardown of the macOS Gemini app published by 9to5Google on May 5.
The new tier carries the internal codename “Neon” and is currently labeled “Google AI Ultra Lite” in app strings, though that branding is probably not final.
The Pricing Gap Problem
Google’s current lineup has a $230 jump between its mid and top tiers. That’s a big ask for individual developers or small teams who want more headroom than Pro offers but don’t need the enterprise-scale access of Ultra. Anthropic’s Claude Max ($100/month) and OpenAI’s Pro plan ($100/month) both live comfortably in that middle range, and both have been attracting the kind of power users who are running into limits on lower tiers.
The Ultra Lite tier appears to be Google’s answer to that gap. No price has been confirmed in the app strings, but the $100 range would fit the competitive landscape and follow the implied positioning.
Usage Dashboard
Alongside the new tier, 9to5Google also found evidence of a dedicated usage tracking page planned for gemini.google.com/usage. The page would display remaining token budgets, five-hour session limits, weekly limits, and overage credit tracking.
That last part is significant for developers. Token constraints have become a friction point across Claude, Copilot, and now Gemini as model usage grows. Having a real-time dashboard to see where you are in your budget is the kind of thing that changes how you plan work sessions and decide whether you need a higher tier.
Timing
Google I/O is on May 19 in Mountain View — the same day as Anthropic’s Code with Claude event in London. An announcement of the new plan at I/O would fit the timeline. Google has been aggressive about expanding its developer audience this year, with Firebase Studio being rebranded as an agent-native development platform and agentic coding expected to be a central topic in the developer keynote.
No launch date has been confirmed. The strings are in the app but the feature isn’t live yet.
Sources: 9to5Google — AI Ultra Lite teardown, Android Police, Android Headlines, Phandroid