Billing and budgets
A Cloud Billing account is one of the prerequisites for consuming any Google Cloud resource. Without it, we can’t create any VM, utilize the free trial period, or use resources under the Google Cloud Free Tier.
One aspect that might be of interest to those leaning toward the ACE certification is the free trial.
Free trial
Google Cloud offers a 90-day, $300-worth free trial for every newly created Google Cloud account. Once registered, $300 worth of credits is added to the bill, which can be used with all products. During the free trial period, resources used from the Free Tier do not get charged against your free trial credits:
Figure 3.3 – First visit to Google Cloud Console as a new user
In Figure 3.3, we see the option to activate the free trial. After clicking TRY FOR FREE, we need to verify our account. We need to add a mobile phone number, provide some information about ourselves, and add a credit card: