Free Google Cloud features and trial offer

If you aren't yet a Google Cloud customer

Signing up for the Google Cloud Free Trial is the best way to explore and evaluate Google Cloud for free.

The Free Trial gets you a $300 Welcome credit to spend over 91 days on various Google Cloud products and you won't be billed. During the Free Trial, you also get access to the Google Cloud Free Tier, which gives you free usage of select products up to specified monthly limits, and to product-specific free trials.

When you are ready for full access to Google Cloud, including features not covered by the Free Trial program, upgrade to a Paid billing account. You keep any remaining credit and continue to have access to the Free Tier. You'll only be billed for usage that exceeds your remaining credit or for usage on products that aren't part of the Free Trial program.

If you are already a Google Cloud customer

You can use select Google Cloud products for free when you stay within their Free Tier monthly usage limits, and when you utilize product-specific free trials. You will only be billed for usage that exceeds those limits.

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Google Cloud Free Trial

The Google Cloud Free Trial is a 91-day program that lets new users try the most popular Google Cloud products without any financial commitment. You will not be billed for any Google Cloud usage during your Free Trial. Access to products may be limited to prevent abuse.

Signing up for the Free Trial creates a Free Trial billing account that is preloaded with $300 in free Welcome credit which is valid for 91 days. You can also use the Free Tier products, up to monthly usage limits. You can spend your $300 credit on products and services covered by the Free Trial, including on usage beyond the Free Tier limits.

We recommend upgrading to a Paid billing account during your Free Trial to prevent loss of service and access to resources when the Free Trial ends. Although upgrading to a Paid billing account ends your Free Trial, you keep any unused credit until it expires 91 days from the Free Trial signup, and you continue to have access to the Free Tier.

With a Paid billing account, you have full access to Google Cloud and you will be billed for usage not covered by the $300 credit or the Free Tier.

If you don't upgrade to a Paid billing account before 91 days pass or if you spend the $300 in free credit, then your Free Trial billing account will be closed and all of its associated projects and resources will be stopped.

Who's eligible

You're eligible for the Free Trial when both of the following are true:

• You've never been a paying user of Google Cloud, Google Maps Platform, or Firebase.
• You haven't previously signed up for the Free Trial.

What to expect at Free Trial signup

During the sign up, you must provide a credit card or other payment method that is valid for the period of the Free Trial. Depending on your country, you might also need to verify your bank account. After you complete the signup and your identity and payment method are verified, your Free Trial period starts.

Google uses your payment information for the following purposes:

• To verify your identity.
• To reduce fraud.
• To create your Free Trial account.

For more information about payment methods, including which types of credit cards are accepted, see available payment methods.

After you complete the signup, Google submits an authorization request to validate your payment information. The authorization request is a temporary hold, it isn't an actual charge:

• Temporary hold: The hold often appears as a pending transaction from Google, with a value between $0.00 and $1.00 USD. Your bank might convert the amount to a local currency.
• Not an actual charge: The authorization request is a hold, not an actual charge. No funds are withdrawn by Google. The hold is typically released within a few days to a month.

If you encounter issues during the verification process, then contact Cloud Billing support.

During the Free Trial

You aren't billed.

You use your Free Trial account to explore Google Cloud. This account provides the following:

• $300 in Welcome credit to spend on products and services covered by the Free Trial program.
• Full access to the Google Cloud Free Tier.
• Full access to Google Cloud, with some restrictions:
  • You can't do any of the following:
    • Add GPUs to your VM instances.
    • Use Google Cloud Marketplace.
    • Request a quota increase. For an overview of Compute Engine quotas, see Allocation quotas.
    • Access or use the $300 credit for a generative AI partner model that is offered as a managed APIs, which is also known as model as a service.
    • Create VM instances that are based on Windows Server images.
    • Create Google Cloud VMware Engine resources.
  • Some use cases are prohibited during the Free Trial. For example, you may not use Google Cloud products or services to mine cryptocurrency during your Free Trial. For a list of restrictions, see Free Trial Terms and Conditions.

• A Google Cloud project named "My First Project". This project contains the Google Cloud resources that you create. The email address that you provided during the Free Trial signup is the ID that has administrator-level access to this project.

• A Free Trial billing account named "My Billing Account". This account accrues the Google Cloud usage costs your project generates. The $300 credit pays for those usage costs and you aren't billed. The email address you provided during the Free Trial signup is the ID of the Billing Account Administrator.

  Your remaining credit and days are available on a Cloud Billing report.

• A Google payments profile that stores information like the form of payment, name, address, and tax ID (when required legally) of who is responsible for the profile. The email address you provided during the Free Trial signup is the ID of the profile's administrator and primary contact.

When the Free Trial ends

Your Free Trial ends when (1) you manually upgrade to a Paid billing account or (2) your Free Trial billing account auto-closes.

When you manually upgrade to a Paid billing account, the following occur:

• Google Cloud access unlocked: You gain access to all Google Cloud products and services, including those products and services that were restricted during the Free Trial, such as GPUs, Google Cloud Marketplace, and third-party generative AI models.
• $300 Welcome credit use continues: Your remaining credit is available for use on products and services covered by the Free Trial, but they must be consumed within the original 91 days period from your sign-up date.
• Billing is enabled: Your payment method is charged for any usage that exceeds your remaining credit, the Free Tier limits, or usage on products that aren't part of the Free Trial.
• Resource continuity: If you upgrade to a Paid billing account before your Free Trial billing account auto-closes, then the resources you created during the Free Trial continue to run without interruption.

Your Free Trial billing account auto-closes if you spend the $300 credit or 91 days pass from signup and you don't upgrade to a Paid billing account. In these cases, the following occur:

• Free Trial billing account is closed: Billing is disabled on your project and your Free Trial account enters a 30-day grace period. If you don't upgrade to a Paid billing account during the grace period, then your Free Trial resources are permanently deleted.

  You might receive a message stating that your Free Trial billing account has been canceled or suspended.

• Resources are stopped: All resources you created during the trial are stopped. Further, any data you stored in services like Compute Engine is marked for deletion and might be lost.
• Access to Google Cloud products and services is lost.

30-day grace period for recovery

If your Free Trial ends because 91 days pass or $300 credit is exhausted, then your Free Trial account enters a 30-day grace period:

• If you upgrade to a Paid billing account during this 30-day grace period, then you might be able to recover your stopped resources and data.
• Otherwise, your Free Trial resources are permanently deleted.

Upgrade to a Paid billing account

To use features that aren't included in the Free Trial or to keep the resources you create during the Free Trial, upgrade to a Paid billing account. Upgrading to a Paid billing account ends your Free Trial; you will be billed for usage not covered by your $300 Welcome credit or for usage on products that aren't part of the Free Trial.

To upgrade to a Paid billing account, do the following:

1. Go to the Welcome page of the Google Cloud console:

   Go to the Welcome page

2. In the toolbar of the Welcome page, click Upgrade.

   If the toolbar doesn't display an Upgrade button, then do the following:

   1. Confirm that you have a Free Trial billing account.
   2. Confirm that you are a Billing Account Administrator for the Free Trial billing account.
3. In the confirmation dialog, click Upgrade.

After you upgrade to a Paid billing account, consider signing up for Cloud Customer Care. There are several levels of support and you can choose the service that best fits your organization's technical support needs.

Google Cloud Free Tier

The Google Cloud Free Tier gives you free usage of select Google Cloud products, up to specified monthly limits.

A Google Cloud billing account is required to access the Google Cloud Free Tier. If you are new to Google Cloud, then you can sign up for a Free Trial to get a billing account and access to the Free Tier.

There is no cost to using a product or service that participates in the Free Tier program when you stay within the specified monthly usage limits:

• If you have a Paid billing account and go beyond those limits, then you will be billed for the overage.
• If you have a Free Trial billing account and go beyond those limits, then your $300 Welcome credit pays for the overage. You are also limited to $300 worth of usage. For full access to Google Cloud, upgrade to a Paid billing account.

Who's eligible

You're eligible when both of the following are true:

• Your Cloud Billing account, which is either a Paid billing account or Free Trial billing account, is active and in good standing.
• You don't have a negotiated pricing contract or a custom rate card with Google, except as described for certain products listed in the Free Tier usage limits table.

Use of the Free Tier

To use products that have a Free Tier, you need a Google Cloud billing account.

Although the Free Tier lets you use certain Google Cloud products at no charge, there are monthly usage limits that are calculated per billing account. Any usage that exceeds the Free Tier usage limits is billed at standard rates.

The Free Tier has no end date, but Google reserves the right to change the offering, including changing or eliminating usage limits, with 30 days' advance notice.

Free Tier usage limits

The following table details the usage limits for Google Cloud products that are part of the Free Tier. If a product isn't listed, then check the product's pricing page to see whether it includes Free Tier offerings.

Product-specific free trials

To use product-specific free trials, you need a Google Cloud billing account.

Product		Key benefits
Create a 90-day Spanner free trial instance with 10 GB of storage at no cost. Try Spanner		Always-on database with virtually unlimited scale. Industry-leading 99.999% availability SLA. This SLA doesn't apply to the Spanner free trial instance. Brings together relational, graph, key value, and search.
Create a 30-day AlloyDB for PostgreSQL free trial cluster with an 8 vCPU basic primary instance and up to 1 TB of storage capacity. Try AlloyDB		PostgreSQL database with increased transactional performance and scalability. Built-in generative AI with Vertex AI integration. Accelerated analytical queries with columnar engine.
Create a 30-day Looker trial instance with all standard features at no cost. Request your Looker free trial		Connect to data in 50+ different databases. Build and manage centralized data models. Access and analyze your trusted data.

Other free offers you may be be interested in

The following products provide either a no-cost plan or a free tier:

• Firebase provides a no-cost-plan with generous usage limits to get you started. When you and your app are ready to scale, you can upgrade to the Firebase Pay-as-you-go billing plan by creating a Google Cloud billing account.

  If you're in India, then you must have an INR-based Cloud Billing account before creating Firebase billing accounts.

• Google AI Studio provides a free tier for many Gemini models. To learn more, see Google AI Studio pricing.

• Google Maps Platform provides a Free Usage Cap for many services. To learn more, see Google Maps Platform pricing.

Frequently asked questions (FAQ)

How to monitor and manage your costs:

• Am I going to be billed?
• How can I track my costs and remaining credit?
• Can I estimate my bills? Is there a calculator?
• How do I minimize or stop charges?
• Why is my billing account suspended?
• Can I pause or extend my Free Trial?
• Do unused Free Tier limits roll over to the next month?

How to get support:

• I need to troubleshoot my Free Trial.
• How do I contact support?
• Where can I find documentation for Google Cloud?
• Are there community forums or groups?

How to monitor and manage your costs

Am I going to be billed?

To determine whether you have a Free Trial billing account, which isn't billed, or a Paid billing account, which is billed, do the following:

1. In the Google Cloud console, go to your Cloud Billing account:

   View your Cloud Billing account

2. If you have more than one billing account, then at the prompt, choose the Cloud Billing account you want to view. The Billing Overview page opens for the selected billing account.

   The Overview page opens and displays information about your billing account:

   • Paid account indicates that your account is billed for the resources that you use.

   • Free trial account indicates that your account isn't billed. However, your usage of Google Cloud products is subject to the Free Trial program coverage limitations and to the Free Trial Terms and Conditions.

     The Free credit pane displays your remaining credit and days, and an Upgrade button, which lets you upgrade to a Paid billing account.

     If you don't upgrade to a Paid billing account, then 30 days after your Free Trial ends, your Free Trial billing account might be suspended.

Back to FAQ

How can I track my costs and remaining credit?

Cloud Billing offers several tools to help you monitor and optimize your costs:

• Cloud Billing reports let you monitor and analyze your usage costs and credit.

  Open Cloud Billing Reports

  In the report, your usage costs calculated at the on-demand rate appear in the Usage cost column. Usage of any credit, including those for the covered by Free Tier limits and the Free Trial, appear in the Other savings column. The Usage cost column can help you understand the costs of using Google Cloud when you have a Paid billing account.

  The following is an example of a Cloud Billing report group by SKU:

  SKU	Usage cost	Saving programs	Other savings	Subtotal
  N1 Predefined Instance Core running in Americas	$33.75	$0.00	-$33.75	$0.00
  Regional Kubernetes Clusters	$55.80	$0.00	-$55.80	$0.00
  Zonal Kubernetes Clusters	$120.40	$0.00	-$120.40	$0.00

• Cloud Billing budgets let you stay informed about how your actual Google Cloud spend compares to your planned spend.
• If you have workloads with predictable resource needs, then purchase committed use discounts (CUD) to optimize your costs. CUDs provide discounted prices in exchange for your commitment to use a minimum level of resources for a specified term.

Back to FAQ

Can I estimate my bills? Is there a calculator?

• For Google Cloud products, use the pricing calculator or consult the pricing page.

• For Google Maps Platform pricing, see the Google Maps Platform pricing page or use the resources listed in the Google Maps Platform Billing page.

Back to FAQ

How do I minimize or stop charges?

If you have a Free Trial billing account, then you aren't billed. To learn how to determine if you have a Free Trial billing account, see Am I going to be billed?.

To minimize costs or prevent your Paid billing account from incurring charges, take the following actions:

• Limit your usage of each product to the Free Tier.
• Shut down resources in your projects. Follow the guidance in the Google Cloud documentation for each of your products.
• Disable billing on the associated projects linked to your Cloud Billing account.
• Close your Cloud Billing account to stop all billable services, and to prevent your Cloud Billing account from incurring charges.

Back to FAQ

Why is my billing account suspended?

There are two common causes for Cloud Billing accounts to be suspended:

• The payment method expired or became invalid.

• A Free Trial ended because the $300 Welcome credit was exhausted or 91 days elapsed.

Back to FAQ

Can I pause or extend my Free Trial?

No. The Free Trial period can't be paused or extended.

Back to FAQ

Do unused Free Tier limits roll over to the next month?

No. Free Tier limits aren't credit; they don't accumulate or roll over from one interval to the next.

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How to get support

I need to troubleshoot my Free Trial

Google Cloud Free Trial Troubleshooter helps you find answers to questions about the Free Trial.

Back to FAQ

How do I contact support?

• Contact Cloud Billing support for billing issues. Cloud Billing support is included for all Cloud Billing accounts. You must be a Billing Account Administrator to interact with Cloud Billing support.
• To access technical support for Google Cloud products, upgrade your support plan.

Back to FAQ

Where can I find documentation for Google Cloud?

• Google Cloud documentation.
• Google Maps Platform documentation.
• Cloud Billing documentation.
• Google Cloud console Help.

Back to FAQ

Are there community forums or groups?

• Find answers, ask questions, and connect with experts in the Google Cloud Community forums.
• To build your skills on Google Cloud, join the Innovators program, which gives you the latest updates, access to technologies and expertise, and exclusive benefits.
• Join a community meetup of knowledgeable Google Cloud enthusiasts.

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