Stage 2 · Lesson 5 of 8

The Google Cloud Free Trial and Free Tier

As of September 2026, new Google Cloud customers get 300 USD of to use over 90 days. If you do not upgrade to a paid account, the trial closes when it ends and its stop, with a short grace period to recover them.

Separately, the Free Tier gives ongoing monthly limits, such as one e2-micro VM in us-west1, us-central1 or us-east1 and 2 million requests. Check the official page for the current list.

Common trapcreating the free VM in any other region, or upgrading and forgetting that everything past the Free Tier limits is now billed.

A question to check yourself, an AI practice session and 2 cheat sheet entries come with the full roadmap. Unlock

Resources for this stage

Start with

PlatformFree
Google Skills (formerly Google Cloud Skills Boost)
Google
Free courses and labs: start with the Cloud Digital Leader learning path for concepts

Keep handy

Google Cloud Documentation
The resource hierarchy and Cloud Billing pages, for projects and budgets

Also worth your time

Shared responsibilities and shared fate on Google Cloud (opens in a new tab)Read
Google's version of the model, and what it adds with secure defaults
Learn to CloudGo deeper
A free, open curriculum for the whole path to a cloud role, to see where this stage fits