---
title: "Is NotebookLM Free? Pricing, Plans and Source Limits"
description: "Is NotebookLM free? Yes. What the free plan includes, NotebookLM pricing for Plus, Pro and Ultra, source limits per plan, and how usage caps work."
canonical: "https://transcript.im/blog/is-notebooklm-free"
markdown: "https://transcript.im/blog/is-notebooklm-free.md"
author: "Leo"
category: "NotebookLM"
datePublished: "2026-10-22T02:31:32.013Z"
dateModified: "2026-10-23T05:28:19.115Z"
---
Is NotebookLM free? Yes. Anyone with a personal Google account in a supported country can use NotebookLM at no cost, and the free plan, which Google calls Standard, includes the core tool: notebooks, cited chat, and the Studio formats such as Audio Overviews, mind maps and study guides. What you pay for is room and headroom. Paid Google AI plans raise the number of notebooks, the number of sources each notebook can hold, and the amount of AI usage you get before a limit kicks in. This guide covers exactly what the free plan gives you, how NotebookLM pricing works across Plus, Pro and Ultra, how the usage limits are measured, and how to fit a large project, such as a whole YouTube course, inside the free source limit.

One naming note before the numbers. On July 16, 2026, Google renamed NotebookLM to Gemini Notebook, so Google's own help pages now say "Gemini Notebook Standard" and "Gemini Notebook in Pro." It is the same product. This article keeps the NotebookLM name because that is what most people still search for. If you want the full picture of what the tool does well and where it falls short, start with our [NotebookLM review](https://transcript.im/blog/notebooklm); this article goes deeper on one part of it: cost and limits.

All plan figures below come from Google's own pages and were checked on October 22, 2026. Google labels its limits "subject to change," so check Google's current page before you rely on any number for a purchase.

## Is NotebookLM Free? The Short Answer

NotebookLM is free to use, with no trial period and no end date. Google's plan page says you can "sign up free of charge by using your gmail account," and the free tier is a full product rather than a demo. The NotebookLM limits on the free plan are about quantity, not features you are locked out of.

Here is what the NotebookLM free plan, officially Gemini Notebook Standard, includes according to Google's [Gemini Notebook plans page](https://support.google.com/gemininotebook/answer/16213268?hl=en):

| What you get | Free plan (Standard) |
| --- | --- |
| Notebooks per account | 100 |
| Sources per notebook | 50 |
| Size of one source | Up to 500,000 words, or 200 MB for an uploaded file |
| AI usage | Standard limits, refreshed every 5 hours up to a weekly limit |
| Custom chat and analytics | Included |
| Advanced sharing | Not included (paid plans only) |
| Watermark removal | Not included |
| Access to new features | Standard |

The per-source size limit comes from Google's help page on adding sources, and it is the same on every plan. Paying won't make one source bigger; it gives you more sources and more usage.

A few conditions apply to the free plan. You need to be above the age of consent in your country, NotebookLM has to be available where you live, and you sign in with a personal Google account. Accounts on a qualifying Google Workspace or Workspace for Education license can also use it, and their access depends on what the organization's plan includes.

For most people with one course, one research project, or one book at a time, the NotebookLM free plan is enough. The two limits people actually run into are the 50-source cap per notebook and the AI usage limit on a heavy day. Both are covered in detail below.

## What You Can Do on the Free Plan

The question "is NotebookLM free" often hides a second one: is the free version cut down? It is not, in the ways that matter for everyday work, and every step in our guide on [how to use NotebookLM](https://transcript.im/blog/how-to-use-notebooklm) works on it. On the free plan you can:

- **Create notebooks and add sources.** PDFs, Google Docs, Slides and Sheets, Word and text files, Markdown, web URLs, pasted text, audio files, images, EPUB files and YouTube links are all accepted as sources.
- **Ask questions with citations.** The chat answers from the sources you select, and each claim links back to the passage it came from.
- **Use Studio.** Generate study guides, briefing reports, flashcards, quizzes, mind maps, slide decks, infographics, Audio Overviews (the [NotebookLM podcast](https://transcript.im/blog/notebooklm-audio-overview) feature) and Video Overviews from the same notebook.
- **Customize the chat.** Google lists custom chat and analytics as available to everyone, not only to paid users.
- **Share notebooks.** Basic sharing works on the free plan; the plan page lists advanced sharing as a paid feature.

What changes on a paid plan is the size of the workspace and the speed at which you hit a wall. On the NotebookLM free plan, a long day of generating Audio Overviews or asking complex questions across a large notebook can use up your AI usage before the day is over. The usage then refreshes every five hours, until you reach the weekly limit.

There are two smaller differences worth knowing. First, watermark removal is listed only for Pro and Ultra, so the free plan and Plus do not get it. Google also notes that a visible watermark is applied automatically for users who live in India, South Korea or Vietnam, whatever the plan. Second, new features usually reach paid tiers first: the plan table lists "Standard" access to new features for the free plan, "Early" for Plus and "Priority" for Pro and Ultra.

## NotebookLM Pricing: How the Paid Plans Work

NotebookLM pricing is not a separate NotebookLM subscription. The paid tiers come bundled with Google's AI plans, sold through Google One, so you upgrade NotebookLM by subscribing to Google AI Plus, Google AI Pro or Google AI Ultra. Each of those plans also includes benefits in other Google products, such as the Gemini app and Google storage.

![NotebookLM pricing: Standard (free), Plus, Pro and Ultra plans compared by sources per notebook, from 50 to 600](/images/blog/is-notebooklm-free/notebooklm-pricing.webp)

The NotebookLM pricing table above summarizes how the tiers differ inside NotebookLM. The figures come straight from Google's plan page:

| Plan | Notebooks | Sources per notebook | AI usage | Watermark removal | New features |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Standard (free) | 100 | 50 | Standard limits | No | Standard |
| Plus (with Google AI Plus) | 200 | 100 | 2x standard | No | Early |
| Pro (with Google AI Pro) | 500 | 300 | 4x standard | Yes | Priority |
| Ultra, 20 TB plan | 500 | 500 | 5x Pro | Yes | Priority |
| Ultra, 30 TB plan | 500 | 600 | 20x Pro | Yes | Priority |

The usage multipliers come from Google's help article on managing usage limits, which describes Plus as "two times higher than standard limits," Pro as "four times higher," and Ultra as "5x or 20x higher than AI Pro depending on your subscription." Google doesn't publish the standard limit as a fixed number of chats or generations, because usage is measured by compute (more on that below).

What about the price in dollars? Google sets the monthly price of each AI plan by country and currency, and the amount can change, so this article leaves the figure out. The current price for your country is on the [Google AI plans page](https://one.google.com/about/google-ai-plans/) on Google One. Check it there, along with any student or regional offer Google is running.

There are two other ways to get the paid tiers without a personal subscription:

- **Google Workspace and Education.** Google says a qualifying Workspace or Education license can give access at the Standard, Pro or Ultra level. Which level you get depends on your organization's license, so ask your administrator.
- **Google Cloud.** Organizations can buy Gemini Notebook for Enterprise or use it through Gemini Enterprise Standard, Plus and Frontline. Google describes this tier as offering "5X or more notebook artifacts," plus enterprise controls such as VPC-SC and IAM.

If your school or employer already uses Workspace, check whether NotebookLM is turned on there before paying for a personal plan. You might already have higher limits.

## NotebookLM Plus vs NotebookLM Pro: Clearing Up the Names

A lot of the confusion around NotebookLM pricing comes from names that changed over time. People search for both "NotebookLM Plus" and "NotebookLM Pro," and the two terms do not mean what they used to.

![NotebookLM Pro compared with NotebookLM Plus: 300 sources per notebook in Pro versus 100 in today's Plus tier](/images/blog/is-notebooklm-free/notebooklm-pro.webp)

### NotebookLM Plus, then

In early 2025, the paid version of NotebookLM was called NotebookLM Plus. Google first sold it to Workspace and Google Cloud customers, and on February 10, 2025, it [added NotebookLM Plus to the Google One AI Premium plan](https://blog.google/feed/notebooklm-google-one/), describing it as "a version with higher usage limits and premium features." Many guides written in 2025 still use that name.

### Plus, now

Google's current plan page does not list a product called NotebookLM Plus. The word "Plus" today refers to the Plus tier of NotebookLM, which comes with Google AI Plus, the entry-level paid plan. It doubles the free limits on notebooks and sources, from 100 to 200 notebooks and from 50 to 100 sources per notebook, and doubles AI usage. In other words, the "Plus" of 2026 is a smaller tier than the "NotebookLM Plus" of 2025.

### NotebookLM Pro

There has never been a standalone product with that exact name. When people say NotebookLM Pro, they mean the Pro tier of NotebookLM, officially Gemini Notebook in Pro, the tier that comes with a Google AI Pro subscription. It gives 500 notebooks, 300 sources per notebook, four times the standard AI usage, watermark removal, priority access to new features and higher access to Gemini models.

So if a guide tells you that "NotebookLM Plus gives you 300 sources," it is describing the 2025 product, whose limits now sit in the Pro tier. If you read "Plus" on Google's current pages, it means the 100-source tier. When in doubt, compare against the official plan table rather than the name in an older article.

## NotebookLM Limits: How Usage Is Measured

NotebookLM limits come in two kinds: fixed caps on notebooks and sources, and a usage limit on how much AI work you can do. The fixed caps are easy to count. The usage limit is the one that surprises people.

![NotebookLM limits: a usage meter that refreshes every 5 hours, a weekly limit, and a Generate later option](/images/blog/is-notebooklm-free/notebooklm-limits.webp)

Google's help article on usage limits describes them as "compute-based." That means a simple question uses less of your allowance than a long, complex one, and a large Studio generation such as a Video Overview uses more than a short chat answer. Google says the limit factors in the complexity of your prompt, the models and features you use, the length of your chat and the specific feature. These are the NotebookLM limits rules that matter in practice:

- **The quota refreshes every 5 hours.** If you hit the limit, you can come back later; the allowance refreshes every five hours until you reach your weekly limit.
- **There is a weekly ceiling.** The five-hour refresh isn't endless; it runs until the weekly limit is reached.
- **Some plans use daily or monthly quotas.** Google notes that daily quotas reset after 24 hours and monthly quotas after 30 days.
- **Auto-generated outputs are free.** When you first add sources, some users see a report, flashcards, infographic, slide deck, Audio Overview or Video Overview created automatically. Google says these are generated once and do not count toward limits.
- **You can queue work for later.** On the web, when you are out of usage, the Studio panel offers "Generate later." The output may take a couple of hours, and you get a notification if notifications are on.

You can always see where you stand. In NotebookLM, open Settings and then Usage to check your AI usage and weekly limit. At the bottom of the chat, a message warns you when you are close to the limit and tells you when it resets, for example "Limit reached. All features are available after 3:00 PM." In Studio, a bar shows the expected cost of a generation before you start it; the fuller the bar, the more of your allowance it will use.

How to stretch the free usage limit:

1. **Select fewer sources per question.** Ticking only the two documents that matter keeps a question smaller than running it across 50 sources.
2. **Ask specific questions.** "Which lessons define churn, and how do the definitions differ?" is cheaper and more useful than "Summarize everything."
3. **Check the Studio cost bar first.** Generate the expensive formats, such as Video Overviews, only when you need them.
4. **Use Generate later on busy days.** Queue the output instead of waiting for the five-hour refresh.
5. **Reuse what you already generated.** Save useful answers as notes instead of asking the same question again.

## NotebookLM Source Limit: How Many Sources Can You Add to NotebookLM?

The NotebookLM source limit depends on your plan: 50 sources per notebook on the free plan, 100 on Plus, 300 on Pro, and 500 or 600 on Ultra. That is the short answer to "how many sources can you add to NotebookLM." The longer answer has a few rules that change how you should build a notebook.

![NotebookLM source limit: 50 sources per notebook on the free plan, with each source holding up to 500,000 words or 200 MB](/images/blog/is-notebooklm-free/notebooklm-source-limit.webp)

The NotebookLM source limit counts items, not words. Each source can be as large as 500,000 words, or 200 MB for an uploaded file, and that ceiling is the same on every plan. So the cap of 50 is really a cap of 50 containers, each of which can hold a lot of text. Rules from Google's help pages that affect the count:

- **Every item is one source.** A PDF is one source, a web page is one source, and a YouTube link is one source, however long the video.
- **Inactive sources still count.** Unticking a source in a notebook won't free its slot. Remove it if you need the room.
- **Sharing does not add room.** Google says sharing a notebook does not change the source limit for any collaborator, so a shared notebook stays at its owner's limit.
- **Some formats have their own cap.** Google Slides can have up to 100 slides, and Google Sheets are limited to 100,000 tokens for now.
- **YouTube sources can disappear.** If a video is deleted or made private, its source is removed from your notebook automatically within 30 days.

The notebook count matters less than people expect. The free plan allows 100 notebooks, which is enough for a separate notebook per course, per client or per book chapter for years of work. The source limit per notebook is what shapes daily use, because a good notebook keeps everything about one topic together.

So how many sources can you add to NotebookLM before it becomes a problem? For typical documents, 50 is a lot. The cap starts to hurt when your material comes in many small pieces: a folder of 80 short articles, 70 meeting transcripts, or a YouTube course where every lesson is its own video. Video is the most common case, and it has a clean fix.

## How to Fit a YouTube Playlist Into the 50-Source Limit

A 60-lesson course playlist does not fit in a free notebook if every lesson is added as its own YouTube link. It uses 60 slots, and the notebook holds 50. Adding videos one by one also brings the problems covered in our guide to [NotebookLM YouTube imports](https://transcript.im/blog/notebooklm-youtube): only public videos with captions can be added, and recent uploads may not import yet. The answer to both is the same: turn the videos into text first, then merge the text into a few large sources.

![Merge YouTube transcripts: six playlist lessons combined into three module files that count as three NotebookLM sources](/images/blog/is-notebooklm-free/merge-youtube-transcripts.webp)

The math is what makes this work. A one-hour talk produces roughly 8,000 to 10,000 words of transcript, and one NotebookLM source can hold 500,000 words. That means a single source has room for around 50 hours of speech. You will rarely want to fill one that full, but it shows how much space the source limit actually leaves you once you merge YouTube transcripts instead of adding videos.

Here is the workflow, step by step:

### 1. Get every transcript in one run

Paste the playlist link into the [YouTube playlist transcript](https://transcript.im/youtube-playlist-transcript) tool on transcript.im. It queues every video in playlist order, reads each creator's caption track when there is one, and transcribes the audio with AI when there is not, so lessons without captions do not leave gaps. Each transcript keeps its video title and its timestamps. For a single video, the [YouTube transcript](https://transcript.im/) page does the same job.

### 2. Check the parts you will rely on

Search the set for names, numbers and technical terms, and spot-check them against the video. Fixing a misheard name now means NotebookLM cites the right spelling later.

### 3. Export plain text or Markdown

These are the formats NotebookLM reads most cleanly. Markdown keeps each lesson title as a heading, which gives the notebook clear boundaries between lessons.

### 4. Merge YouTube transcripts by module

Group related lessons into one file per module, per topic or per month of uploads, and keep each lesson's title as a heading inside the file. Name files by scope, such as "Module 3 - Lessons 12-18.md," so the source list and the citations stay readable.

### 5. Add the merged files to NotebookLM

A 60-lesson course becomes six to eight sources instead of 60, leaving more than 40 slots for slides, readings and your own notes.

If your exported files are numbered in playlist order, one short command merges a folder of lesson files into a single source. On macOS or Linux:

```bash
for f in module-3/*.txt; do printf '# %s\n\n' "$(basename "$f" .txt)"; cat "$f"; printf '\n\n'; done > "Module 3 - Lessons 12-18.md"
```

On Windows, in PowerShell:

```powershell
Get-ChildItem module-3\*.txt | Sort-Object Name | ForEach-Object { "# $($_.BaseName)`n"; Get-Content $_; "`n" } | Set-Content "Module 3 - Lessons 12-18.md"
```

Both commands add each file name as a heading, so the lesson title travels with its text. If your file names do not start with a lesson number, rename them first so the order is kept.

How should you group the files? A few examples of a source plan that fits the free limit:

| Material | Videos | Merged sources | Room left in a free notebook |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Online course playlist | 60 lessons | 8 (one per module) | 42 |
| Conference channel | 120 talks | 12 (one per track) | 38 |
| Weekly podcast on YouTube | 150 episodes | 13 (one per year or season) | 37 |
| Competitor channel research | 90 videos | 6 (one per competitor and year) | 44 |

For a channel rather than a playlist, the [YouTube channel transcript](https://transcript.im/youtube-channel-transcript) tool takes one channel link and queues its public uploads the same way. When the channel keeps publishing, transcribe only the new uploads and add one new file, instead of rebuilding the notebook.

One practical caution: smaller groups give sharper answers. A file per module lets you tick one module on and off for a question; a single file holding the whole course works, but every question then runs across all of it. Merge to save slots, not to get down to one source.

Only transcribe and upload videos you are allowed to use, such as your own content, course material you have access to, or public videos you are studying for your own notes.

## Free vs Paid: When the NotebookLM Free Plan Is Enough

The NotebookLM free plan covers far more than most people expect, especially once you merge small files into larger sources. Whether you need more depends on the shape of your work, not on how serious it is. Here is how common situations map onto the plans:

| Situation | Free plan | When a paid tier changes things |
| --- | --- | --- |
| One course per semester | 50 sources fits a course with merged transcripts and readings | Rarely needed |
| A thesis or long research project | Fits if you merge related papers or notes | When you need more than 50 separate documents you cannot merge, such as distinct papers you want to cite one by one |
| Daily heavy use of Studio | Usage limit may run out mid-day | Plus doubles usage, Pro gives four times the standard limit |
| Team sharing | Basic sharing works | Advanced sharing is a paid feature |
| Removing watermarks | Not included | Watermark removal comes with Pro and Ultra, except for users in India, South Korea and Vietnam |
| Organization-wide use | Personal accounts only | Workspace, Education or Google Cloud plans add admin and data controls |

A simple test: if you have not hit a limit yet, the free plan is doing its job. If you hit the source cap, try merging first; it costs nothing and often solves the problem. If you hit the usage limit most days, that is the clearest sign a higher tier would change your workflow.

## Privacy and Data on Free and Paid Plans

Privacy works the same way on the free and paid personal plans. Google's plan details say your data "is not used to train Gemini Notebook unless you provide feedback," and that when you do share feedback, Google may review the full context of that interaction, including your queries, uploads and the model's responses. Google also says it may process data to prevent fraud, abuse and technical issues.

Workspace and Workspace for Education accounts have stronger terms. According to the same page, their uploads, queries and responses are not reviewed by human reviewers, even when the user gives thumbs-up or thumbs-down feedback, and are not used to train AI models. If you handle sensitive client or student material, that difference matters more than any source limit.

Whatever the plan, follow your school's, employer's and copyright rules before uploading restricted material. A free account and a paid account are both still a cloud service.

## How to Check Your NotebookLM Plan and Usage

If you are not sure which plan you are on, for example because your school or company provides access, there are three ways to find out:

1. **Your profile badge.** Google says upgraded plans show a distinct badge next to your profile image in the NotebookLM interface. No badge usually means the free Standard plan.
2. **Settings, then Usage.** This screen shows your current AI usage and your weekly limit.
3. **Your administrator.** On a Workspace or Workspace for Education account, the admin can tell you which license, and therefore which tier, your account has.

To upgrade from inside the product, select Upgrade from the chat or from a Studio generation and follow the on-screen instructions.

## FAQs

### Is NotebookLM free?
Yes, NotebookLM is free with a personal Google account in supported countries. The free plan, called Standard, includes 100 notebooks, 50 sources per notebook, cited chat and Studio formats such as Audio Overviews, with standard AI usage limits.

### Is NotebookLM free forever, or is it a trial?
NotebookLM's free plan is not a trial and has no end date. Google lists it as a permanent plan that you sign up for free of charge, and paid plans are optional upgrades for higher limits.

### Is Gemini Notebook free too?
Yes, Gemini Notebook is free, because it is the same product as NotebookLM under its new name since July 16, 2026. Existing notebooks and shared links carried over.

### How much does NotebookLM Pro cost?
NotebookLM Pro, officially Gemini Notebook in Pro, costs the monthly price of a Google AI Pro subscription in your country. Google sets that price by country and currency and lists it on the Google AI plans page on Google One.

### Is NotebookLM Plus still available?
NotebookLM Plus no longer exists under that name. It was the 2025 paid tier included with Google One AI Premium; today Google sells Plus, Pro and Ultra tiers through its Google AI plans, and the current "Plus" tier gives 100 sources per notebook.

### What are the NotebookLM limits on the free plan?
NotebookLM limits on the free plan are 100 notebooks, 50 sources per notebook, 500,000 words or 200 MB per source, and a compute-based AI usage limit that refreshes every 5 hours up to a weekly limit.

### How many sources can you add to NotebookLM?
You can add up to 50 sources per notebook on the free plan, 100 on Plus, 300 on Pro, and 500 or 600 on Ultra, depending on the Ultra storage tier.

### Does the NotebookLM source limit count words or files?
The NotebookLM source limit counts files, links and pasted texts, not words. Each source can hold up to 500,000 words, so merging several related documents into one file uses only one slot.

### Does a YouTube video count as one source?
Yes, every YouTube link counts as one source, regardless of the video's length. To add a whole playlist without using one slot per video, transcribe it first and merge the transcripts into a few files.

### What happens when I hit the NotebookLM usage limit?
When you hit the usage limit, chat and Studio pause until the quota refreshes, which happens every 5 hours until you reach the weekly limit. On the web you can choose Generate later to queue a Studio output.

### Does sharing a notebook increase the source limit?
No, sharing a notebook does not change the source limit for any collaborator. The notebook keeps the same cap no matter who opens it.

## The Bottom Line

NotebookLM is free, and the free plan is a complete tool rather than a teaser: 100 notebooks, 50 sources per notebook, cited answers and every Studio format, limited only by a usage allowance that refreshes through the week. NotebookLM pricing comes into play when you need more room or more usage, and it is bundled into Google's AI plans rather than sold on its own. Plus doubles the free limits, Pro gives 300 sources and four times the usage, and Ultra goes further still.

Before upgrading, try the free fix for the most common wall. The source limit counts items, not words, so merging transcripts, notes and short documents into a few well-named files stretches 50 sources a long way. For video, that means getting the text out first with transcript.im, grouping lessons by module, and giving NotebookLM a handful of rich sources instead of dozens of thin ones. To learn more about the product itself, the [Wikipedia article on Gemini Notebook](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemini_Notebook) covers its history, from its start as Project Tailwind to the rename.