Gemini 3.5 Flash vs Pulse AI
The cheapest raw model against a dedicated platform, and they finish two points apart. Gemini 3.5 Flash is far better on single pages, scans, and Hebrew and Arabic. Pulse AI is far better on multi-page statements, long registers, and Chinese and Japanese scans. Both have serious failures. Gemini's is on every long document. Pulse's is on a scattering of ordinary short ones. Pulse has a product. Gemini has a price.
Gemini here is Google's fast general model with a file and a field list. Pulse is a dedicated extraction platform with a pipeline builder, webhooks, and SDKs. They came sixth and seventh, and their profiles are close to mirror images.
Gemini was second only to DocuPipe on single-page documents and photographed or rotated scans, and it returned more documents completely correct than any system in the test. Pulse was the weakest system on single pages. Gemini was also far ahead on Hebrew and Arabic layouts. Pulse led on multi-page statements, on Chinese and Japanese scans by a wide margin, and on long registers, where Gemini posted the lowest average in the test with runs that failed outright and Pulse returned fractions.
On resilience both are hard to trust, in different ways. Gemini's failure is predictable, every long document, and nothing about the call fixes it. Pulse's ranked result needed its top model tier with extended reasoning, and its empties fell on ordinary files with no pattern. Predictable is easier to build around.
On price Gemini is the cheapest thing we tested, well under a cent per page with a free tier for development. Pulse gives 20,000 free credits and $0.015 per credit after, but doesn't publish credits per page, and everything beyond the free plan is custom. Gemini's price is knowable but leaves out the product. Pulse's includes it but can't be worked out.
Pulse's product is a real platform: pipelines from classify, extract, schema, tables, charts, and split steps with saved presets and bounding-box results, webhooks, async jobs, batch endpoints, and ten seats on the free tier, SDKs in Python and TypeScript, and a security page listing SOC 2, ISO 27001, HIPAA, and GDPR with self-hosting on Enterprise. Gemini offers a good general API with the largest PDF page limit of the raw models, a Files API and structured output, and no dashboard, webhooks, document jobs, or retention controls, with a data policy that differs between free and paid tiers.
So Gemini for single-page, high-volume work with your own pipeline. Pulse for multi-page and East Asian material when you want a platform, after a free-tier trial on your own files and a written per-page price. For a mixed corpus, neither. Look higher up the board.
High-volume single-page work such as receipts and photographed forms, with your own pipeline, where cost decides.
Multi-page statements and Chinese and Japanese scans, when you want a platform with a pipeline builder and webhooks, after a free-tier trial and a per-page quote.
How it scores, area by area
The accuracy score comes from the benchmark. Every other score is ours, with the reason written next to it. We use the same weights on every review and comparison.
| Area | Gemini 3.5 Flash | Pulse AI |
|---|---|---|
| Accuracy35% of total | 7.3Ranked 6th of 8 systems on the benchmark. | 7.1Ranked 7th of 8 systems on the benchmark. |
| Resilience15% of total | 3.0Several runs failed outright and the long-document average was the lowest in the test; excellent one day and empty the next depending on page count. | 3.0Ordinary one-page files came back empty with no pattern to predict it, and the ranked result needed the top model tier with extended reasoning turned on. |
| Price15% of total | 10.0$1.50 and $9 per million tokens plus a free tier; well under a cent per page. | 5.0$0.015 per credit, but credits per page are not published, so the cost of a page is unknown. |
| Getting started10% of total | 4.0No document product, though the free tier makes trying it trivial. | 7.0Platform UI with ten seats and 20,000 free credits; everything past that is custom pricing. |
| API and integration10% of total | 5.0Strong general SDKs, the largest PDF page limit of the direct models, a Files API and structured output; no document jobs or webhooks. | 8.0Webhooks on the free tier, Python and TypeScript SDKs, async and batch endpoints. |
| Data control7.5% of total | 4.0Platform policy only, and it differs between the free and paid tiers. | 6.0Retention configured by contacting support; zero retention and regional residency on Pro. |
| Compliance7.5% of total | 6.0Platform certifications apply to the API; your pipeline is your responsibility. | 8.0SOC 2, ISO 27001, HIPAA and GDPR listed; self-hosted and VPC on Enterprise. |
| Overallweighted | 6.2weighted score out of 10 | 6.2weighted score out of 10 |
How each area is scored
- Accuracy (35%). The benchmark result, on a 0 to 10 scale.
- Resilience (15%). Does it just work? Fewer modes to choose, no tuning to reach the ranked result, no runs that fail outright, and no documents that come back quietly empty. Informed by the benchmark, judged by us.
- Price (15%). Published cost per page for parse plus extraction, cheapest scoring highest. Unpublished pricing is marked down.
- Getting started (10%). How far you get without a sales call: a dashboard, a free tier with no card, help authoring schemas, a test environment.
- API and integration (10%). Webhooks and which tier they are on, SDKs, no-code connectors, whether the API is built around document jobs at all.
- Data control (7.5%). Deletion controls, scheduled retention, zero-retention availability and on which tier, choice of region.
- Compliance (7.5%). Certifications stated on public pages: SOC 2, ISO 27001, HIPAA with a BAA, GDPR, private deployment options.
By document type
Average accuracy on each group of benchmark documents, both systems on the same files. Every document and score is on the evidence page.
| Document type | Gemini 3.5 Flash | Pulse AI |
|---|---|---|
| Scans and photosimages, not PDFs · 7 documents | 95.5% Strong | 65.4% Mixed |
| Short forms, invoices, receiptsone page · 30 documents | 94.1% Good | 72.7% Mixed |
| Statements, filings, reports2 to 5 pages · 21 documents | 87.5% Good | 87.2% Good |
| Non-English documents12 languages · 25 documents | 68.9% Mixed | 65.7% Mixed |
| Long registers, catalogs, directories6 pages and up · 21 documents | 28.3% Weak | 52.2% Weak |
Price, product, and policies
Full reviews: Gemini 3.5 Flash, Pulse AI.
| Gemini 3.5 Flash | Pulse AI | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | Per token through the Gemini API. No document-specific product or plan. | Credits. 20,000 free credits on the free plan, then $0.015 per credit. Credits per page are not published. |
| Entry price | $1.50 per million input tokens, $9 per million output tokens on the paid tier. | Free plan, then $0.015 per credit. Pro and Enterprise on request; annual billing 15% off. |
| Cost per page | Depends on page size and output length; typically well under a cent to a couple of cents per page, the cheapest of the direct models. | Not derivable from the public page, since credits per page are not published. |
| Free tier | Yes. A rate-limited free tier for development. | Yes. 20,000 credits. |
| Pay as you go | Yes. Pure usage billing. | Yes, on the free plan via overage. |
| Dashboard | No document product. AI Studio for trying prompts; upload, review and results tooling is yours to build. | Yes. Pulse Platform: upload files, build pipelines from classify, extract, schema, tables, charts and split steps with saved presets, and see results with bounding boxes. 10 seats on the free plan. |
| Webhooks | None for document jobs. You run the pipeline. | Yes, including on the free plan. |
| API and SDKs | Official SDKs in Python, JavaScript, Go and others. PDF input up to 1,000 pages or 50 MB, a Files API with 48-hour storage, structured output. | Python, TypeScript and REST. Async jobs, batch endpoints and saved pipeline presets. |
| Data retention | Governed by Google's API data policies, which differ between the free and paid tiers. Nothing document-specific. | Retention windows and delete-on-first-poll are configured per organization by contacting support; zero-data-retention on Pro and up; US or EU residency on Pro. |
| Compliance | Google's platform certifications apply to the API; your pipeline around it is your responsibility. | SOC 2, ISO 27001, HIPAA (with agreement), GDPR listed on the security page. Self-hosted and VPC deployment on Enterprise. |
We checked these against the vendors' own pricing and documentation pages on 2026-09-11. Sources: Gemini 3.5 Flash: ai.google.dev; Pulse AI: www.runpulse.com, docs.runpulse.com. Prices change, so confirm before you budget.
Frequently asked
Which is more accurate, Gemini or Pulse AI?
Close overall, 72.98% to 70.95% in our benchmark, with opposite profiles. Gemini was far ahead on single pages, scans, and Hebrew and Arabic. Pulse was far ahead on multi-page, long, and Chinese and Japanese documents.
Which is cheaper, Gemini or Pulse AI?
Gemini, almost certainly. Well under a cent per page on token billing. Pulse publishes a per-credit rate but not credits per page, so its cost per page is unknown until quoted.
Scores are macro-average field accuracy from the DocuBench 0.2.0, 72-document run. Every document, answer key, and raw extraction is open in the explorer; the scoring rules are on the methodology page, and the replication kit re-runs the scorer. A document a system could not process scores zero rather than being dropped.