Google Cloud Platform (GCP) Pricing 2026
Complete pricing guide with plans, hidden costs, and negotiation tips
Google Cloud Platform (GCP) pricing varies by team size and features, ranging from $300 to $999 per month in 2026. Your actual cost depends on the tier you choose, contract length, and negotiated discounts.
Use the interactive pricing calculator to estimate your exact cost based on team size and requirements.
- Free tier: Yes
- Billing: Monthly and annual (save 15-20%)
- Hidden costs: Add ~35% for implementation, support, and training
Google Cloud Platform (GCP) offers 5 pricing tiers: Free Tier, On-Demand (e2-micro), On-Demand (e2-standard-2), Committed Use Discounts (1-Year), Spot VMs. Standard paid plans include Free Tier at $0/month, On-Demand (e2-micro) at $6.12/month, On-Demand (e2-standard-2) at $48.92/month. The On-Demand (e2-micro) plan is micro-services, lightweight apis, and small development instances.
Compared to other cloud infrastructure software, Google Cloud Platform (GCP) is positioned at the premium price point.
Google Cloud Platform (GCP) is the third-largest cloud infrastructure provider with roughly 12% global market share. GCP is known for its strengths in data analytics (BigQuery), machine learning (Vertex AI), Kubernetes (GKE, originally developed by Google), and global networking. Its per-second billing and automatic sustained use discounts make it a cost-effective option for many workloads.
GCP pricing starts at $6.12/month for an e2-micro instance. Production workloads on e2-standard-2 VMs cost about $48.92/month. Committed Use Discounts offer up to 57% off (1-year) or 70% off (3-year), and Spot VMs provide 60-91% savings for interruptible workloads. GCP's unique custom machine types let you configure exact CPU and memory to avoid overpaying.
All Google Cloud Platform (GCP) Plans & Pricing
| Plan | Monthly | Annual | Best For |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free Tier | Free | Free 0 | Developers exploring GCP, data analytics experimentation, and serverless prototyping |
| On-Demand (e2-micro) | $6.12 /month | $73.44 /month | Micro-services, lightweight APIs, and small development instances |
| On-Demand (e2-standard-2) | $48.92 /month | $587.04 /month | General-purpose production workloads, web applications, and application servers |
| Committed Use Discounts (1-Year) | Contact | Contact | Production workloads with predictable resource usage over 1-3 years |
| Spot VMs | Contact | Contact | Batch processing, CI/CD pipelines, big data analytics, and fault-tolerant applications |
View all features by plan
Free Tier
- $300 credit for first 90 days
- 1 e2-micro VM instance/month (always free in select regions)
- 5 GB Cloud Storage (always free)
- 1 GB Cloud Functions invocations/month
- 2 million Cloud Run requests/month
- 10 GB BigQuery queries/month (always free)
- 30 GB Cloud Shell storage
- Always-free tier for 20+ products
On-Demand (e2-micro)
- 0.25 shared vCPUs, 1 GB memory
- Per-second billing (1-minute minimum)
- Automatic sustained use discounts (up to 30%)
- Available in 40+ regions globally
- Custom machine type support
- Live migration for zero-downtime maintenance
- Integrated with Cloud Monitoring
On-Demand (e2-standard-2)
- 2 vCPUs, 8 GB memory
- Per-second billing with sustained use discounts
- Up to 30% automatic discount for sustained usage
- Custom machine types available for exact resource needs
- Preemptible/Spot VM option for up to 91% savings
- Live VM migration
- Sole-tenant nodes option for compliance
Committed Use Discounts (1-Year)
- Up to 57% off On-Demand (resource-based, 1-year)
- Up to 70% off On-Demand (resource-based, 3-year)
- Resource-based or spend-based CUDs available
- Spend-based CUDs apply across multiple services
- Stackable with sustained use discounts
- Custom machine types eligible
- Automatic application to qualifying usage
Spot VMs
- 60-91% off On-Demand pricing
- Same VM specs as standard instances
- Price updated at most once every 30 days
- May be reclaimed with 30-second notice
- Ideal for batch processing and fault-tolerant jobs
- Available across all machine families
- No minimum usage commitment
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Frequently Asked Questions
01 How much does Google Cloud cost?
Google Cloud uses pay-as-you-go pricing with per-second billing. An e2-micro instance costs $6.12/month, an e2-standard-2 costs about $48.92/month, and production workloads typically range $100-$5,000/month. New accounts get $300 in free credits for 90 days.
02 Does Google Cloud have a free tier?
Yes, GCP offers a generous free tier: $300 credit for the first 90 days, 1 always-free e2-micro instance per month, 5 GB Cloud Storage, 10 GB BigQuery queries/month, and 2 million Cloud Run requests/month. Over 20 products have always-free usage tiers.
03 What hidden costs should I expect with Google Cloud?
Common hidden costs include data egress ($0.12/GB for first 1 TB), persistent disk storage ($0.04-0.17/GB/month), Cloud NAT fees, load balancer charges, and Cloud Logging ingestion ($0.50/GB beyond free tier). Data egress is typically the biggest surprise.
04 How can I save money on Google Cloud?
GCP automatically applies sustained use discounts (up to 30%) for long-running VMs. Committed Use Discounts save up to 57% (1-year) or 70% (3-year). Spot VMs save 60-91% for interruptible workloads. Custom machine types let you pay for exact resources needed.
05 Is Google Cloud cheaper than AWS?
GCP is often cheaper for sustained workloads due to automatic sustained use discounts (up to 30% off, applied automatically). GCP's e2-micro at $6.12/month is cheaper than AWS t3.micro at $7.59/month. GCP also offers custom machine types to avoid overpaying.
06 What is unique about GCP pricing?
GCP uniquely offers automatic sustained use discounts (up to 30% for VMs running 25%+ of the month), custom machine types (pay for exact CPU/RAM), per-second billing from minute one, and $300 in free credits for 90 days (vs. AWS's 12-month Free Tier).