Nova 2 Lite, the Amazon model in numbers
Nova 2 Lite in numbers: price per token, context window, independent benchmark scores and comparable models, based on public data checked on October 22, 2026.
Data as of October 22, 2026
Key figures
| Developer | Amazon |
|---|---|
| Released | December 2, 2025 |
| Knowledge cutoff | October 2025 |
| Context window | 1,000,000 tokens (≈ 1,500 pages) |
| Maximum output | 65,535 tokens |
| Input price | $0.30 per million tokens (median of 4 providers) |
| Output price | $2.5 per million tokens |
| Open weights | No |
| Reasoning mode | Yes |
| Tool calling | Yes |
| Structured output (JSON) | No |
| Accepted inputs | text, image, video, PDF |
| Providers offering it | 4 |
Nova 2 Lite at a glance
Amazon released Nova 2 Lite on December 2, 2025. It has a reasoning mode: it can "think" before answering, which helps with multi-step problems but uses more tokens, and therefore more money. Its weights are not published, so it only runs remotely, through the Amazon API or partner hosts (4 listed on models.dev). That makes it 10 months old as of October 22, 2026.
We file it under mid-range models (34 models in this category on the site).
Benchmark results
As of October 22, 2026, Epoch AI publishes no score for Nova 2 Lite on our basket's benchmarks. To place it, rely on its specifications and price, then test it on your own cases.
How much does Nova 2 Lite cost?
Nova 2 Lite costs $0.30 per million input tokens and $2.5 per million output tokens (median of 4 providers, checked on October 22, 2026).
In practice, an agent task that reads 20,000 tokens and writes 2,000 costs about $0.011, or $11 for 1,000 such tasks.
That is 1.8 times cheaper than the median output price of mid-range models ($4.38).
To estimate your own budget, use the agent cost calculator.
Context and capabilities
Its context window reaches 1,000,000 tokens, roughly 1,500 pages of text at 500 words per page: enough to load a whole book or a mid-sized codebase. A single answer can run to 65,535 tokens.
It accepts as input: text, image, video and PDF. Its knowledge stops at October 2025: beyond that, it needs web search or your documents.
It can call tools (functions, APIs), which makes it a possible foundation for an AI agent.
When to choose it
Given its category, Nova 2 Lite is mainly aimed at a balance between quality and cost, for everyday uses that do not justify a frontier model.
Its very large context window makes it worth considering for analysing large sets of documents in a single request.
Before adopting it, test it on your own examples: benchmarks measure standard tasks, not your job.
Comparable models
In the same category, the models closest to Nova 2 Lite are:
- Grok 4.3 (xAI, index 76.8)
- Grok 4.20 (Reasoning) (xAI, index 74.6)
- Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite (Google DeepMind, index 53.9)
- Seed 2.1 Turbo (ByteDance Seed, $2.5 per million output tokens)
Similar models
- Grok 4.3 · xAI · index 76.8
- Grok 4.20 (Reasoning) · xAI · index 74.6
- Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite · Google DeepMind · index 53.9
- Seed 2.1 Turbo · ByteDance Seed
Frequently asked questions
How much does Nova 2 Lite cost?
As of October 22, 2026, Nova 2 Lite costs $0.30 per million input tokens and $2.5 per million output tokens (median of 4 providers). A task that reads 20,000 tokens and writes 2,000 costs about $0.011.
What is the context window of Nova 2 Lite?
1,000,000 tokens, roughly 1,500 pages of text. An answer can reach 65,535 tokens.
Is Nova 2 Lite open source?
No. It is a closed Amazon model, available only through an API.
When was Nova 2 Lite released?
Nova 2 Lite was released on December 2, 2025, according to models.dev.
Can you build an agent with Nova 2 Lite?
Yes: it can call tools, the two basic building blocks of an agent.
Data sources
- Models.dev — Model data: models.dev (open-source project)
- OpenRouter — Market prices cross-checked with OpenRouter
Data as of October 22, 2026
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