08-14-2026, 02:00 PM
The Always Free tier ≠ the trial. The trial gives $300 for 90 days; Always Free is permanent and renews monthly. Both need a billing account attached, but you won't be charged if you stay inside free limits.
What's actually useful for AI work on Always Free:
- e2-micro VM – cron jobs and lightweight services
- Cloud Functions – 2M invocations/month, great for webhooks
- Cloud Storage – 5 GB free
- BigQuery – 1 TB of queries/month
Gotcha: leaving a big VM or GPU running is how people accidentally get billed. Set a budget alert the moment you create the account.
Full walkthrough here: Setting up the GCP Free Tier (non-trial)
What have you built on free cloud tiers?
What's actually useful for AI work on Always Free:
- e2-micro VM – cron jobs and lightweight services
- Cloud Functions – 2M invocations/month, great for webhooks
- Cloud Storage – 5 GB free
- BigQuery – 1 TB of queries/month
Gotcha: leaving a big VM or GPU running is how people accidentally get billed. Set a budget alert the moment you create the account.
Full walkthrough here: Setting up the GCP Free Tier (non-trial)
What have you built on free cloud tiers?
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