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Reputation: 1584

GCP GCE F1-micro not free?

I am trying to create a GCE f1-micro in GCP. It should be free according to: GCP Free Tier

and following the tutorial: How to set up a free micro VPS on Google Cloud Platform

However it does not seem to be free. The pricing calculator set beside is showing the message:

$4.28 monthly estimate

What I am missing? thanks

Upvotes: 5

Views: 7079

Answers (2)

robsiemb
robsiemb

Reputation: 6374

Sicne this was answered, the free instance type is now an e2-micro, not an f1-micro, but this answer should otherwise still hold.

A single free tier qualified (e.g. e2-micro) instance, running for an entire month, given certain constraints, should be free, yes.

2 things might be at play here for your estimate:

When using the pricing calculator, to ensure the free tier limits are accounted for, make sure you check the "Include Always Free usage in my estimate" box (note that this checkbox only appears if you have selected a valid "always free" configuration):

free tier box

The GCP pricing calculator does not automatically include disk in the estimate, but it would also account for the free tier for disk usage in a similar way, when it is added to the estimate.

That said, you appear to be referring to the estimate that shows up on the "Create an instance" page. This estimate does not account for the free tier, and additionally includes the cost the persistent disk that you have requested (also without accounting for the free tier). However, if you see the message "Your first 720 hours of f1-micro instance usage are free this month." above that estimate, the instance (but possibly not including the disk if it is, for example, larger than 30GB) should qualify for the free tier (subject to your other usage, of course).

Second, the always free tier for an f1-micro is only in one of three US regions: us-west1, us-central1, or us-east1. Make sure you have selected one of those regions.

Upvotes: 6

Travis Webb
Travis Webb

Reputation: 15028

It's f1-micro is always free up to 720 hours (1 month) in the supported regions. GCP still shows you the cost per hour, because GCP doesn't yet know how many hours you're going to use. If you use more than 720 hours, it will begin charging you at that rate.

Your Always Free f1-micro instance limit is by time, not by instance. Each month, eligible use of all of your f1-micro instances is free until you have used a number of hours equal to the total hours in the current month.

Upvotes: 5

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