What is Gemma 3 27B Instruct good for?

Multilingual text generation and image understanding. It is the largest Gemma 3 model at 27.4B parameters, with open weights under the Gemma Terms of Use, and needs about 16 GB at 4-bit.

When is Gemma 3 27B Instruct not a good fit?

Video or audio input, web search, code execution or structured output. Self-hosting needs about 16 GB at 4-bit, more than the 12B variant, and the August 2024 knowledge cutoff is older than the Gemma 4 family's.

What is the cheapest way to run Gemma 3 27B Instruct?

Hosted, unless you push serious volume. Novita charges $0.12 in / $0.20 out per 1M tokens. The cheapest rental that fits is 1x RTX 3090 at $94 a month, which costs the same as about 0.7B tokens a month on that API.

Can I self-host Gemma 3 27B Instruct?

Yes. The weights are released under the Gemma Terms of Use. At 4-bit it needs about 20 GB of GPU memory, which starts at roughly $94 a month on the cheapest rental that fits.

Open weights · Gemma Terms of Use

Gemma 3 27B Instruct

The largest model in Google's open-weight Gemma 3 family at 27B parameters, multilingual and sized for a single GPU.

Visit website Compare vs other LLMs →

Jump to: Specs Pricing Self-hosting Similar models FAQ More from Google Cloud

Cheapest via Novita

Input: $0.12 / 1M tokens
Output: $0.20 / 1M tokens

2 providers

Key Specifications

Context window: 128K tokens
Max output: 128K tokens
Knowledge cutoff: Aug 2024
Released: Mar 2025
Parameters: 27.4B
Inputs: Text, image

Capabilities Show details: Function calling Connect to external tools, APIs, and systems.

Hosted API pricing

Input tokens M Output tokens M

Provider	Input / 1M tokens	Output / 1M tokens	Cost at 10M in + 2M out
Novita	$0.12	$0.20	$1.60	View
Google Cloud Creator	Open weights, no hosted price			View

Heads up: Prices are estimates using base-tier, on-demand rates per 1M tokens from published pages; cached, batch and long-context tiers are shown only where listed. Providers may serve a shorter context or a quantized build than the creator's release. Verify with the provider before provisioning. How we estimate costs.

Estimated cost to self-host

Gemma 3 27B Instruct needs about 20 GB of GPU memory at 4-bit with 32K context. The cheapest rental that fits is 1× RTX 3090 at about $94 a month.

That costs the same as roughly 0.7B tokens a month on Novita's API. Self-hosting is more expensive below that volume.

Precision	Cheapest, 32K context	Cheapest, full 128K context
4-bitINT4 / FP4	1× RTX 3090 20 GB VRAM · $94/mo	2× RTX 5060 Ti 22 GB VRAM · $130/mo
8-bitFP8 / INT8	2× RTX 3090 32 GB VRAM · $187/mo	2× RTX 3090 40 GB VRAM · $187/mo
16-bitFP16 / BF16	4× RTX 3090 59 GB VRAM · $374/mo	4× RTX 3090 67 GB VRAM · $374/mo

Estimates based on median on-demand rates for Nvidia GPUs. Memory is weights plus KV cache for one request, using FP8 KV cache where supported and FP16/BF16 otherwise. Break-even assumes a 5:1 input-to-output ratio. No guarantee of runtime support, usable performance, or that a matching quantized build exists. How we estimate costs.

Similarly priced models

The models nearest Gemma 3 27B Instruct by blended rate, five each way, each at its own cheapest provider.

Model	Blended / 1M	Input / 1M	Output / 1M	Context	Cutoff	vs Gemma 3 27B Instruct
Llama 3 8B Meta	$0.08	$0.05	$0.25	8K	Mar 2023	−37%
Qwen3-Coder-30B-A3B Alibaba Cloud	$0.09	$0.06	$0.25	262K		−31%
Ministral 3 3B Mistral	$0.10	$0.10	$0.10	256K		−25%
GLM-5.3-Flash Z.AI	$0.11	$0.08	$0.25	1M		−19%
GPT-5 Nano OpenAI	$0.11	$0.05	$0.40	400K	May 2024	−19%
Gemma 3 27B Instruct This model Google Cloud	$0.13	$0.12	$0.20	128K	Aug 2024
Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite Google Cloud	$0.15	$0.10	$0.40	1M	Jan 2025	+13%
GPT-4.1 Nano OpenAI	$0.15	$0.10	$0.40	1M	Jun 2024	+13%
Ministral 3 8B Mistral	$0.15	$0.15	$0.15	256K		+13%
Qwen3.5-Flash Alibaba Cloud	$0.15	$0.10	$0.40	1M		+13%
Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B Nvidia	$0.16	$0.09	$0.50	1M	Jun 2025	+19%

Prices are USD per 1M tokens at each model's cheapest listed provider. Blended is the cost of 10M input plus 2M output tokens, spread over the 12M.

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Frequently Asked Questions

What is Gemma 3 27B Instruct good for?: Multilingual text generation and image understanding. It is the largest Gemma 3 model at 27.4B parameters, with open weights under the Gemma Terms of Use, and needs about 16 GB at 4-bit.
When is Gemma 3 27B Instruct not a good fit?: Video or audio input, web search, code execution or structured output. Self-hosting needs about 16 GB at 4-bit, more than the 12B variant, and the August 2024 knowledge cutoff is older than the Gemma 4 family's.
What is the cheapest way to run Gemma 3 27B Instruct?: Hosted, unless you push serious volume. Novita charges $0.12 in / $0.20 out per 1M tokens. The cheapest rental that fits is 1x RTX 3090 at $94 a month, which costs the same as about 0.7B tokens a month on that API.
Can I self-host Gemma 3 27B Instruct?: Yes. The weights are released under the Gemma Terms of Use. At 4-bit it needs about 20 GB of GPU memory, which starts at roughly $94 a month on the cheapest rental that fits.

More from Google Cloud

Model	Context	Cutoff	Input / 1M	Output / 1M
Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite	1M	Jan 2025	$0.10	$0.40
Gemma 4 31B Open weights	256K	Jan 2025	$0.13	$0.37
Gemma 4 26B A4B Open weights	256K	Jan 2025	$0.13	$0.40
Gemma 3 12B Instruct Open weights	128K	Aug 2024	$0.05	$0.10
Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite	1M	Jan 2025	$0.25	$1.50
Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite	1M	Mar 2026	$0.30	$2.50
Gemini 2.5 Flash	1M	Jan 2025	$0.30	$2.50
Gemini 3 Flash Preview	1M	Jan 2025	$0.50	$3.00