The GCP free trial gives 300 USD for 90 days with no charges. But one rule is easy to miss: when the 90 days end or the credit runs out, the trial billing account closes and every project and resource under it stops. So when to upgrade is a decision to make in advance.
The GCP "$300 for 90 days" trial is probably the best-known entry offer among the five providers. But what circulates online is mostly "you get 300 dollars free", while the one rule in the documentation that actually matters is rarely mentioned.
This page follows the order "what the benefits are, how to start, what expiry does, and therefore what to do". Amounts and periods are on the official pages and can change.
If you are comparing providers, the Azure free account follows a different logic (smaller credit, shorter window, but a much thicker long-term free layer) - see how the Azure free account works.
Three separate benefits - do not merge them
The documentation splits "free" into three things with different rules and different periods; merging them produces the wrong arithmetic:
| Benefit | What it is | Period |
|---|---|---|
| Trial credit | 300 USD welcome credit, spendable on covered products (including usage beyond the free tier limits) | 90 days |
| Free tier | Selected products free within monthly usage limits | Ongoing - it does not vanish when the trial ends |
| Product-specific trials | Time-limited trials of individual products | Per product |
Why the split matters: many people assume "at 90 days everything disappears". In fact the free tier is ongoing - it survives the end of the trial, and even the upgrade to a paid account. The right mental model is: the 300 dollars is time-limited; the free tier is permanent.
Eligibility and the card: two "nevers" and a hold
The eligibility rules are clear, and both must hold:
- You have never been a paying user of Google Cloud, Google Maps Platform or Firebase; and
- You have never previously signed up for the free trial.
One more point worth stating: the credit is per user, not per organisation. That does not mean "another email gets you another trial" - eligibility turns on whether you have ever been a paying user or signed up before.
Sign-up requires a credit card or another valid payment method. The stated reasons are identity verification, fraud reduction, and preventing abuse of production infrastructure.
That small hold is not a charge
After binding a card you may see a very small pending transaction, and plenty of people read it as a charge. The documentation is explicit:
It is an authorisation hold, not an actual charge. Officially the hold usually sits between $0.00 and $1.00 (banks may convert to local currency), Google withdraws no funds, and the hold is typically released within a few days to a month.
Why give this its own section? Because this is exactly where cards issued in mainland China most often get blocked - a small cross-border authorisation is easily flagged as anomalous. The same friction appears on Alibaba Cloud International (see signing up for Alibaba and Tencent Cloud International).
The expiry rule: what happens when the 90 days end
This is the section worth remembering. The documentation states it plainly:
⛔ If you do not upgrade to a paid billing account within 90 days, or if the 300 USD credit is used up, the free trial billing account is closed - and every project and resource associated with it is stopped.
Three things follow from that sentence:
- It is not a smooth "expiry converts to pay-as-you-go" - it is account closure plus stopped resources.
- It can happen when you least expect it: spending the 300 USD early triggers it, and the 90-day clock cannot be paused or extended.
- The blast radius is every project and resource under that account, not just whichever project burned the credit fastest.
⛔ So the most dangerous mindset during the trial is "run it for now, deal with expiry later". If anything valuable lives in that trial - data, a trained model, a working configuration - the expiry date is a deadline that requires action in advance, not a reminder.
Why Google suggests upgrading early
Many people do not know this: the documentation recommends upgrading to a paid billing account during the trial, specifically to avoid service interruption and loss of access to resources at the end.
The cost of upgrading is smaller than it sounds, because two things are stated alongside it:
- Upgrading ends the trial, but your unspent credit is retained - still valid for 90 days from trial sign-up.
- You keep access to the free tier - that ongoing allowance does not disappear on upgrade.
In other words: upgrading does not waste the remaining credit; it flips the billing state from trial to on-demand and lets the remaining credit be consumed. The one substantive change is that usage beyond the credit and the free tier now starts being billed.
Which answers "when should I upgrade": not when the 90 days run out, but when you decide this thing is going to run long-term. If you want to cost the long-term picture before upgrading, the approach in how to use the AWS Pricing Calculator carries over.
Three things to finish inside the trial
Read the rules backwards and the 90 days become a defined task window:
- Answer "is this for the long term". The trial main value is validating without cost pressure - the point is to reach a conclusion, not to drift into the expiry date.
- Deal with anything valuable before expiry. If you decide not to upgrade, then data, configuration and models need exporting - because expiry stops resources, it does not merely stop billing.
- If you do upgrade, work out the long-term discounts at the same time. GCP has the most layered discount structure of the five (one layer applies automatically, plus commitment discounts), and the automatic layer does not stack with commitments - the upgrade is the right moment to work that out. Details in how to get GCP discounts.
A practical schedule: set a checkpoint at 14 days before expiry. By then you should be able to answer three questions - continue or not, upgrade or not, anything to export. Two weeks of buffer exists because both the upgrade and payment verification can take time.
FAQ
Am I really never charged during the trial?
Per the documentation, you are not billed for Google Cloud usage during the free trial - the stated wording is that you will not be charged. Two caveats: usage that neither the credit nor the free tier covers may be affected (which is precisely why upgrading early is recommended), and the card authorisation at sign-up is not a charge. The official terms are authoritative.
Can I use the AWS and Azure free allowances at the same time?
Yes, they are independent - three separate programmes with separately assessed eligibility. Their logic differs a lot: AWS gives credits plus allowances on selected services on registration (see AWS Free Tier for new accounts); Azure combines a credit with 12-month free services and a long-term free layer (see how the Azure free account works); GCP pairs a time-limited credit with an ongoing free tier.
Can the trial be extended or paused?
No. The documentation states the trial cannot be paused or extended. The 90 days is a hard countdown - which is why the 14-day checkpoint matters.
Can the credit be spent on any GCP product?
Not all of them. The credit covers products and services included in the trial (including usage beyond free tier limits), but some features sit outside trial coverage - which is where upgrading to a paid account is described as necessary for full access. Check the official page for the current scope.
If I do not upgrade, can I recover my data after expiry?
Do not leave this until after expiry to find out. The stated behaviour is that the trial billing account is closed and its projects and resources are stopped. Recovering from that state will not be quick or cheap. The correct move is to export or upgrade before expiry - which is why it is one of the three tasks above.
After upgrading, how do I save money long-term?
GCP discounts come in four layers, one of which applies automatically (run long enough and it discounts itself - no other provider has an equivalent), and that layer does not stack with commitment discounts (CUDs) because the model is banded. So GCP long-term cost is not solved by simply buying a commitment - understand the layer boundaries first. See how to get GCP discounts; all five providers are in cloud discount mechanisms compared; the channel route is in GCP discounts and reseller pricing.