Getting Started with GCP Free Tier and Billing

Many people want to try cloud without the risk of big bills. Google Cloud Platform lets you start small, test your ideas, learn new tools, without spending much. If you use the free tier well, you can explore many services, understand costs, avoid surprises. This article shows how to begin with the GCP free tier, manage billing, what services you can try, and how to compare Google Cloud Platform vs AWS. 

What is Google Cloud Platform 

Google Cloud Platform (GCP) is a set of cloud computing services from Google. You get computing power, storage, networking, data tools, machine learning, APIs. You work with these through the Google Cloud Platform console which is a web interface to manage projects, services, billing, and APIs. 

People use google cloud computing services when they build apps, store large data, analyze logs, use AI, or run microservices. Because GCP offers strong data tools (BigQuery), helpful AI APIs, and solid infrastructure, many choose it over others. 

Understanding GCP Free Tier 

When you sign up, GCP gives two kinds of free use: 

1. Free Trial Credit 

1. You get US$300 credit to use over 90 days to try most services. 

2. You enter billing info, but you are not charged until you upgrade. 

2. Always Free Tier (Forever Free Services) 

1. Certain services remain free within set limits every month. 

2. Examples include one e2-micro VM instance free per month in US regions (us-east1, us-central1, us-west1). 

3. 5 GB of regional storage in Cloud Storage. 

4. 1 TB of BigQuery queries per month. 

5. Firestore free quotas: about 1GB storage plus tens of thousands of reads/writes/deletes per day.  

Key GCP Services List to Try for Free 

Here are services you can realistically use under free tier to build or test ideas: 

• Compute Engine: spin up a small virtual machine (e2-micro) to deploy apps or host dev environments. 

• Cloud Storage: store files, media assets, or backups. Free capacity enough for many small projects. 

• BigQuery: analyze data using SQL without setting up your own servers. Good for log analysis, small datasets. 

• Cloud Run: run containerised apps in serverless mode. Scales automatically. 

• Firestore (NoSQL Database): mobile, web apps, or APIs often use Firestore. Free quotas allow basic operations. 

• APIs: vision, translation, speech, maps etc. Many have free units or free usage limits. 

Trying them helps you see how google cloud platform services charge per usage (compute time, storage, network) and avoid overuse. 

How GCP Billing Works 

Understanding billing is essential to avoid unexpected cost. 

• You create a Cloud Billing account inside Google Cloud Platform console. That links to a payments profile (credit card or other method). 

• As you use services beyond free quota or after free credit ends, GCP starts charging automatically to the payment method. 

• Billing is pay as you go. You pay for what you use. For instance, compute time is charged per second (not per hour) in many services. 

• You can track costs using billing reports in the console. You can view which services cost you most (Compute Engine, BigQuery, network egress etc). 

• You can set budgets & alerts so you get notified when cost passes a threshold. That helps stop surprises. 

• Quotas and limits matter. Every service has limits. If you exceed free quota or limits, you’ll be billed or you must enable billing for that project. 

Comparing Google Cloud Platform vs AWS in Free Use and Pricing 

If you wonder google cloud platform vs aws, here are points that help: 

• AWS has its own free tier, but many free offers are for 12 months. GCP provides some always free resources. 

• For many small scale or prototype projects, GCP free tier is simpler to use because fewer surprise costs. 

• In pricing transparency GCP console is quite clear. AWS has many services, many configurations; pricing can become complex. 

• GCP tends to charge per second for compute. AWS often rounds to hourly in some cases. If you frequently start and stop VMs, GCP may cost less. 

• If your work involves data analytics or machine learning or you plan later to use google cloud platform api or AI tools then being familiar with GCP early gives advantage. 

Steps to Begin Without Surprises 

Follow these steps to start using GCP free tier safely: 

1. Sign up using a Google account. Activate the free trial. 

2. In the Google Cloud Platform console enable billing. Even free quota services require an active billing account. 

3. Explore always free services first. Deploy small apps, test APIs. 

4. Set budgets and alerts. Ask console to notify you when spending reaches say 50 USD, 100 USD etc. 

5. Tag resources, track usage, stop or delete resources you no longer need. E2-micro VMs left running will accumulate cost if free quota is exceeded. 

6. Examine the pricing calculator inside GCP. Estimate costs for your projected usage. Use that for planning. 

7. Monitor data egress (network traffic leaving region). That often causes unexpected bills. 

What Things Can Cost More Than You Expect 

Several areas commonly surprise people: 

• If you deploy VMs outside free regions (outside us-east1, us-central1, us-west1) you may lose free offerings for that region. 

• If you attach GPUs or TPUs to VMs – free tier does not include them. They cost extra. 

• Disk storage (persistent disk) and snapshots may cost even when VM is idle. 

• Heavy usage of APIs or high numbers of operations (reads/writes) beyond free quotas. 

• Leaving services running 24×7 when you only need them during development hours. 

GCP Certification and Why It Matters 

When you learn to use google cloud platform certification paths, you get structure in learning. You understand how gcp services list work, how billing works, resource limits, best practices. 

Certifications like Associate Cloud Engineer or Professional Data Engineer give credibility. If you are in a team, certified members help avoid misconfigurations or wasted cost. Also clients often trust certified skills for consulting which ties back to google cloud platform consulting. 

Real Examples You Can Build with Free Tier 

Here are small real ideas that stay within free limits but teach you things: 

• A blog site or static website hosted on Cloud Storage + CDN 

• A REST API using Cloud Run + Firestore for data 

• Upload images and analyze using vision API 

• Log data into BigQuery, run queries to get insights 

These let you see service pricing in practice, monitor usage, and get comfortable with the Google Cloud Platform console. 

Optimising Cost: Best Practices 

Here are tips that make cost lower: 

• Shut down or delete unused resources 

• Use smaller instance types when possible 

• Use free regions if that makes sense for latency 

• Use cloud free quotas first 

• Monitor billing daily or weekly 

• Use quotas to limit your own usage so that costs do not exceed what you want 

• Use alerts and automation (if possible) to cut off services that go out of control. 

Conclusion 

Starting with Google Cloud Platform using the free tier and free trial gives you a safer way to build, learn, test. If you follow good habits in billing, monitor your usage, use always free services first, you avoid surprises. 

At TeleGlobal International, we provide google cloud platform consulting to set up your GCP account right, optimise billing, train teams so they use gcp certification mindsets, and get the most out of free resources without waste.