1K, 2K or 4K in Nano Banana 2, and what each one costs

The quirk that decides most of it

Nano Banana 2 through Figgshield charges 8 credits for a 1K image, 8 credits for a 2K image, and 16 credits for a 4K image. Read that again: 1K and 2K cost exactly the same.

So the usual instinct, start small and cheap at 1K, saves you nothing. If the file is going anywhere a person will actually look at it, generate 2K and take the extra pixels for free.

That leaves 1K with one honest job: when a smaller file is genuinely more convenient, like a quick thumbnail, a placeholder in a layout, or a test you will throw away. Choose 1K for the file size, never to save credits, because there are none to save.

When 4K is worth its 16 credits

4K is the only resolution that costs more, double the price of the others. It earns that when the image will be seen large or up close: a printed poster, a website hero that fills a wide screen, a product shot a shopper can zoom into.

It also helps when you plan to crop hard. Starting from 4K and cutting to a detail keeps that detail sharp, where the same crop from 2K would go soft.

For anything that lives at phone size, a social post, a chat sticker, an email header, 4K is 8 credits you did not need to spend. The viewer's screen throws the extra detail away.

Match the resolution to where the image lands

The quickest way to decide is to name the destination first, then let it pick the resolution.

• Draft or idea you are still exploring: 2K
• Instagram, TikTok, or a story seen on a phone: 2K
• Blog post, email, or slide deck: 2K
• Website hero or full-width banner: 4K
• Print, poster, packaging, or anything above A4: 4K
• An image you will crop down to a small detail: 4K, then crop

Budgeting a run in credits

Since one balance covers everything, it helps to think in whole projects. A 2K image is 8 credits and a 4K image is 16, so a 4K frame always costs the same as two 2K frames. That single ratio is most of the planning you need.

There is no free tier. You start on the $5 Pro trial, which runs 7 days and comes with 150 credits to spend across images and video, and you pay nothing more if you cancel before it renews. Full numbers sit on the pricing page.

A pattern that works: draft everything at 2K, pick the keepers, then regenerate only those winners at 4K if their destination asks for it. You pay the higher price once, on the images that crossed the finish line, not on every experiment. The pricing is at cost, so ten drafts cost exactly ten drafts, and your credit balance is the only thing to watch.

Resolution before you turn a still into a clip

You can animate any image you generated by handing its id to a video request, which starts the clip from that exact frame. The resolution you chose feeds into that starting frame, so pick it with the eventual video in mind if you already know a clip is coming.

Video runs on Kling 3, with a faster Kling 3 Turbo tier when speed matters more than the last bit of polish. A five-second clip is 35 credits from the same balance as your images, so a still plus a short clip is 8 plus 35, or 16 plus 35 if you led with 4K.

Everything you make sits on a private link for 7 days and is then deleted, at any resolution, so download the files you want to keep before the week runs out. A reference image you send is used in memory and never stored.