I pay for both ChatGPT Plus and Gemini Pro. I'm thinking of cancelling my ChatGPT subscription because I keep hitting rate limits. Meanwhile I have yet to hit any rate limit with Gemini/AI Studio.
AI Studio uses your API account behind the scenes, and it is subject to normal API limits. When you signup for AI Studio, it creates a Google Cloud free tier project with "gen-lang-client-" prefix behind the scenes. You can link a billing account at the bottom of the "get an api key page". Also note that AI studio via default free tier API access doesn't seem to fall within "commercial use" in Google's terms of servi…
This is not true for the Gemini 2.5 Pro Preview model, at least. Although this model API is not available on the Free Tier [1], you can still use it on AI Studio.