Gemini

Gemini's daily quota is counted per model name, not per account

Gemini's free tier told me I was out of requests for the day. Three sibling models answered me normally in the same second. The daily allowance is counted per model name, so the day had not run out at all.

The refusal named its own dimension: requests per day, per project, per model, on the free tier, with the model set to the exact one I had asked for. It offered another try in 29 seconds. A daily bucket doesn't refill in 29 seconds.

So instead of waiting, I walk a short list of siblings, best first. I left every latest alias out of that list on purpose. An alias can be repointed at a Pro model, and a Pro model has zero requests a day on a free key.

I only put a name on that list after making one real call with it and getting text back. Six have cleared that. Five are written down as dead with the code each returned, and one of those five is still listed and answers 404.

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