Google's $300 credit broke Gemini nodes in ComfyUI, so one dev built a Vertex AI workaround
Cute-Appointment6874 · reddit · 2026-09-02
A developer found that none of the existing ComfyUI Gemini nodes worked with Google's $300 free trial — Google stopped letting that credit pay for the Gemini API via AI Studio back in March, and every node he tried goes through AI Studio, throwing 429 prepayment credits depleted.
The workaround: Vertex AI. Same models, different endpoint, and the credit does work there — with gcloud login instead of a pasted API key. He built a custom node (comfyui-gemini-ownkey) that:
- Supports Nano Banana Pro and 2.5 Flash Image, text-to-image with up to 14 reference images, 1K/2K/4K output
- Offers a reference-mode setting: by default Gemini copies the face from reference photos even when the prompt describes someone else; you can toggle it off or find a middle ground
- Switches between AI Studio and Vertex in-node, keeps your key in a config file so it doesn't leak into shared workflows
- Ships two small scripts to diagnose whether an issue is login, billing, or Google being down
Tested on Windows portable with ComfyUI 0.34.2; install via git clone for now. The author notes it's vibe coded — review carefully.
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