Unexpected ‘Number of videos generated’ billing for Gemini API text requests

Gemini API
,
1

Hello,

I’m currently using Gemini API with the following code to generate text-only responses.
We are NOT sending any images, audio, or video files – only plain text is included in the parts parameter and expecting text results.

Here is a simplified version of our code:

const chat = await geminiClient.chats.create({
  model: "gemini-2.0-flash-lite",
  history: messages.map(msg => ({
    role: msg.isFromUser ? 'user' : 'model',
    parts: [{ text: msg.content || '' }],
  })),
  config: {
    maxOutputTokens: 8000,
    systemInstruction: systemPrompt,
  },
});

The Problem

Recently, we noticed unexpected billing charges in our Google Cloud Billing report.
The charges are appearing under the SKU:

“Number of videos generated”, “Veo 3 fast Audio Generation (output)” etc

This is confusing because our code only sends text to Gemini LLM.
We are not using any video generation models or multimedia inputs in our requests.

billing

billing792×680 26.5 KB

  1. Can text-only Gemini API calls ever incur the “Number of videos generated” SKU?
    Our requests send only parts: [{ text: ... }] (no image/audio/video parts). Under any documented behavior, could this still bill under a video-generation SKU?

  2. Could a request be categorized under a video SKU without sending video content?

    • Are there known cases where mixed/multimodal models or internal routing can label text calls as “video” in Billing?

    • The function shape is fixed (always text-only). Could a prompt alone (prompt engineering) cause the backend to perform a video generation task and thus bill as video, even without media parts?

3

Hi @HJ_L
Can you please check with cloud billing team once and let me know if the issue still persists afterward.

Thank you