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multimodal-rag-guide/costs.md
Kjell Tore Guttormsen edcd1721df Initial commit: multimodal RAG guide with Claude Code 
Prompt-driven guide for building multimodal search using
Gemini Embedding 2 + Pinecone + Claude Code. Includes example
data (NASA public domain), step-by-step prompts, concepts
explainer, cost breakdown, and troubleshooting guide.
2026-03-12 16:36:22 +01:00

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What Does This Cost?

Short answer: you can do this entire guide for free or near-free.

Claude Code

You need a Claude subscription that includes Claude Code.

  • Claude Pro ($20/month): Includes Claude Code with usage limits.
  • Claude Max ($100/month or $200/month): Higher limits.

If you already have a Claude subscription, there is no extra cost. Claude Code handles building the app AND answering questions based on your search results.

Google Gemini Embedding 2 (for embeddings only)

We use Google's Gemini Embedding 2 to convert your content into searchable embeddings. We do NOT use Gemini as a language model. Claude does the thinking. Gemini just creates the fingerprints.

  • Free tier: Available through Google AI Studio with rate limits (1,500 requests per day)
  • Paid: $0.20 per million tokens

For this guide with 7 example files, you will use roughly 10-20 requests total. The free tier is more than enough.

Why Gemini Embedding 2 and not Voyage (Anthropic's embeddings)? Because Gemini Embedding 2 supports text, images, AND video natively. Voyage supports text and images but not video. For a multimodal guide, the broadest format support wins.

Pinecone Vector Database (free tier)

Pinecone's free tier includes:

  • Free: 1 project, 5 indexes, 100,000 vectors
  • No credit card required

For this guide, we store about 15-30 vectors (one per chunk of content). You could store thousands of documents and still stay within the free tier.

Total cost for this guide

Service What it does Cost
Claude Code Builds the app, answers questions Part of your subscription
Gemini Embedding 2 Converts content to searchable vectors Free (well within free tier)
Pinecone Stores and searches vectors Free (well within free tier)
Total $0 extra

What if you want to scale up?

If you move beyond the example and want to index thousands of documents, here is what the costs look like:

Scale Gemini embeddings Pinecone Monthly total
100 documents Free Free $0
1,000 documents ~$0.50 Free ~$0.50
10,000 documents ~$5 Free ~$5
100,000 documents ~$50 $70+ (Starter plan) ~$120

For most personal and small business use cases, you will stay comfortably in the free tier.