Some Google products and services let you set up or link a Cloud Billing account directly within their application interface. This streamlined flow, referred to as in-product Cloud Billing setup, lets you enable billing capabilities for your Google product or service without leaving your current workflow.
This document explains the account features and billing status associated with this setup type.
How in-product Cloud Billing setup works
With the appropriate permissions, you can initiate a Cloud Billing setup directly from supported product interfaces.
Depending on the product you are using, this setup might result in a Paid account or a Free trial account. For more information about Cloud Billing accounts and their billable status, see Cloud Billing account types.
Setup for Paid accounts
When you use the in-product billing setup in supported products, such as Google AI Studio, you enable billing on your project by either creating a new Cloud Billing account or linking your project to an existing Cloud Billing account. Enabling billing through the in-product billing setup lets you immediately unlock paid features, higher quotas, and enterprise capabilities without leaving your current workflow.
For those products, the billable status of the Cloud Billing account is Paid account and you are charged for your product usage. The following are key details of this configuration:
- When you configure a paid Cloud Billing account, you become a Google Cloud customer. Your Google user account is no longer eligible for the Google Cloud Free Trial but you might be eligible for complimentary welcome credits to explore other Google Cloud products.
- With a paid billing account, you are billed for your product usage based on the charging cycle of your Cloud Billing account.
- When compared to free tier or free trial offers, using a paid billing account lets you access more features and higher quotas for your workflow.
- You don't need to manually upgrade your Cloud Billing account later. You are ready for production workloads immediately.
- You have access to the entire Google Cloud platform.
- When exploring other Google Cloud products, you might be eligible for Free Tier usage of select Google Cloud products, up to specified monthly limits.
Because your Cloud Billing account is immediately activated as a Paid account when you use the in-product billing setup, your product usage is charged to the payment method connected to your Cloud Billing account. These charges include your usage of other Google Cloud products that is no longer covered by welcome credits and usage that exceeds the Google Cloud Free Tier usage limits. For more information on how these conditions apply, see About charges and free offers for paid billing accounts.
For information about products and services that support the in-product Paid account setup, see Supported products.
Charging cycles
Depending on the product and your account status, your Cloud Billing account is set up with one or more of the following charging cycles that determine when you pay for your resource usage:
- Postpay: For most Google Cloud services, you use resources first and costs accrue to be paid later. You are charged automatically at the end of your billing cycle or when your accrued costs reach a specific threshold amount. This cycle applies to all services unless a product specifically requires a Prepay cycle.
- Prepay: For specific services, such as the Gemini API in AI Studio, you purchase credits in advance to access paid tiers. These prepay credits are stored in a separate balance and are deducted as you use the service. You pay manually when you load credits into your account, or you can set up auto-reload to add prepay credits automatically and keep your services running. Prepay credits are non-refundable and expire after one year of purchase. If this balance is exhausted, the specific service requiring prepayment stops working until you add more credits.
A single Cloud Billing account can support both charging cycles simultaneously. For example, you might have a Prepay balance for Gemini API costs and maintain a Postpay cycle for your other Google Cloud resources.
If you meet eligibility criteria and manually switch from a Prepay cycle to a Postpay cycle, any remaining prepay credit balance is automatically refunded to the original payment method used for the prepayment. However, if you close your Cloud Billing account for any other reason, any remaining prepay credits are forfeited and can't be refunded.
About charges and free offers for paid billing accounts
The in-product Cloud Billing setup might affect the application of charges and free offers of your product if the Cloud Billing account is configured as a Paid account. This section describes how these offers apply to paid billing accounts that are set up through in-product flows.
Welcome credits
Cloud Billing accounts set up using the in-product flow on specific services and products might be eligible for welcome credits to help you explore the Google Cloud platform.
Welcome credits offer benefits comparable to the standard Google Cloud Free Trial credits, including the amount, restrictions, and validity period. However, they are subject to additional guidelines:
- Welcome credits are added to your configured Paid account, which is active after setup.
- Welcome credits support the discovery and onboarding of additional Google Cloud services, with some restrictions.
- Unlike a Free trial account, you are billed for Google Cloud usage when you exceed Free Tier usage limits or exhaust your welcome credits.
- Welcome credits don't cover usage for products explicitly excluded from the program, such as Gemini API in AI Studio. Usage for these products is charged to your Cloud Billing account based on your charging cycle, but your welcome credits remain available for other eligible services.
Google Cloud Free Tier and free product usage
The Google Cloud Free Tier gives you free use of select Google Cloud products, up to specified limits. On a Paid account configured or linked with and in-product setup, Google Cloud products with a Free Tier continue to offer free usage up to their specified limits.
Additionally, other Google products offer product-specific free trials or other free offers available outside of the Google Cloud platform. You are billed for usage of resources from products or services that don't have active free offers or aren't covered by welcome credits.
Billing is based on your specific account type and charging cycle. Your usage is charged when it exceeds the product's free offer limits or when the available welcome credits are exhausted.
Supported products
The following table lists the Google products and services that support in-product Cloud Billing setup:
| Product | Description | Cloud Billing account billable status | Charging cycles | Welcome credits and free offers |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Google AI Studio |
Create a Cloud Billing account directly from the AI Studio interface to manage API keys, access higher rate limits for Gemini API models, and pay for usage beyond the free tier. |
Paid account |
Prepay for usage of the Gemini API Postpay for usage of other Google Cloud services |
Welcome credits exclude Gemini API usage |
Monitor your costs
The tools available to help you monitor your costs depend on your charging cycle.
Prepay
For Gemini API in Google AI Studio, if you configure a Paid account that requires you to prepay for usage, you can monitor your usage and available credits in the Google AI Studio interface in Dashboard > Usage and Limits.
Postpay
If you configure a Paid account and incur postpay usage charges, we recommend the following Cloud Billing tools to help you monitor your spending:
- Create budgets and set up budget alerts.
- Analyze billing data and cost trends with Reports.
- View and manage cost anomalies.