A Cloud Billing account defines who pays for a given set of Google Cloud resources. To use Google Cloud services, you must have a valid Cloud Billing account, and must link it to your Google Cloud projects. Your project's Google Cloud usage is charged to the linked Cloud Billing account.

You must have a valid Cloud Billing account even if you are in your free trial period or if you only use Google Cloud resources that are covered by the Google Cloud Free Tier.

You also need a Cloud Billing account to pay for your use of the Google Maps Platform APIs.

Getting started

• Understanding the Google Cloud Free Program

• Beyond your free trial: Cloud Billing onboarding checklist

• Overview of Cloud Billing concepts

• Access control for Cloud Billing

• Get and redeem education grants

• Understand your committed use discounts

• Get started with Cloud Billing APIs

Manage your billing account

• Create, modify, or close your Cloud Billing account

• View projects linked to your Cloud Billing account

• Manage your payment methods

• Get an invoice, statement, or receipt

• Understand your monthly invoice

• Pay your invoice

• Resolve Cloud Billing issues

Cost management tools

• Create, edit, or delete a budget

• Manage programmatic budget alert notifications

• View your billing reports and cost trends

• Understand your invoice: Cost Table reports

• Understand your savings: Cost Breakdown reports

• View and download your price lists

• View your committed use discount (CUD) reports

• Export Cloud Billing data to BigQuery

• More  

Training and tutorials

Try Cloud Billing tutorials, training courses, and Qwiklabs from Google Cloud.

Qwiklabs

Understanding your Google Cloud costs

Learn how to view your invoice, track your Google Cloud costs with Billing reports, analyze your billing data with BigQuery or Google Sheets, and create custom billing dashboards with Data Studio.

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Qwiklabs

Optimizing your Google Cloud costs

Learn about ways to control and optimize your costs, such as setting up budgets and alerts, managing quota limits, and taking advantage of committed use discounts.

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Video series

Beyond your bill: video series

Beyond your bill goes over topics that help you understand, control, and optimize your Google Cloud costs.

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Video series

Cost management: video series

Get best practices for monitoring, controlling, and optimizing your costs with Google Cloud's cost management tools.

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PDF guide

Financial governance in the cloud

Best practices for understanding, controlling, optimizing, and managing your IT costs to create a path to predictable cloud costs.

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Video series

Billing for Google Maps Platform: video series

Using Google Maps Platform APIs requires a Cloud Billing account. Learn how to get started with Google Maps Platform, including setting up your Cloud Billing account, enabling APIs, generating API keys, and optimizing your costs with quotas and budgets.

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Videos