Is NotebookLM free? Yes, and it is now called Gemini Notebook

Is NotebookLM free? Yes. Google's help center lists a standard free tier for anyone with a Gmail account, with up to 100 notebooks and 50 sources per notebook, as of October 28, 2026. NotebookLM is also no longer the product's name: Google renamed it Gemini Notebook on July 16, 2026.

Is NotebookLM the same as Gemini Notebook?

Yes. Google says it is "the same standalone product", with a new name and logo. It describes the product as a research tool that will do more across Google's other products. Notebooks and links you already had keep working, because Google says automatic redirects cover shared notebooks and user links.

The new name appeared in different places over several weeks after July 16, and mobile users may need to update the app to see it. The help pages now say Gemini Notebook, while some pages and many articles still use the old name. If you search for either, you are looking at one product.

What the free plan includes

Google's help center lists the free tier as "Standard (free, with a Gmail account)". The numbers below are from the usage limits page, which says limits are subject to change.

A single source can be up to 500,000 words or 200 MB for a local upload. Sharing a notebook does not change the source limit for anyone you share it with.

Daily and monthly quotas for things like chat, audio and video overviews also differ by plan. The pages read for this article do not list those numbers for the free tier, and Google points to a separate usage limits article for them. Daily quotas reset after 24 hours and monthly quotas after 30 days.

What paying for Google AI adds

Gemini Notebook has no plan of its own. Paid access comes with the Google AI plans, and Google's plans page describes the difference in general terms:

• Google AI Plus: "more access to features and models in Gemini Notebook".
• Google AI Pro: expanded access, larger notebooks and expanded usage limits.
• Google AI Ultra: higher access, the largest notebooks and the highest usage limits.

Some features start on the higher tiers. In its announcement, Google says the new cloud computer, which lets a notebook write and run code to analyze data, is available now to Google AI Ultra users and to Workspace business customers with AI Ultra Access and AI Expanded Access. It says the feature will reach all Pro users on the web over the coming weeks. It did not say it is coming to the free tier.

Workspace and Gemini Enterprise customers get their own limits. The help center says Gemini Enterprise plans offer five times or more the notebook artifacts of the standard plan, without giving exact numbers.

What is not confirmed

The plans page did not show dollar prices in the text that could be retrieved, so this article gives none. Check the page for the current price of each plan before you buy. For the price of the entry-level plan, see the explainer on whether Gemini is free.

Where to use it

Notebooks can be created and opened in the Gemini app and sync with the standalone experience, according to Google. Google also says notebooks are coming to AI Mode in Search. On the phone apps, you can record audio into a notebook, which saves the transcript as a source.

Next to watch: Google's usage limits page, which is where any change to the free tier's numbers will show up first.