They had a 5K spike within a few hours and billing support, after bot chat and escalation to a human agent, waived it.
63signal
262reviewsi
A score out of 100. Negative and mixed reviews take points off, and so does having only a few reviews, so a handful of glowing reviews can’t beat a product many people like.
21% Positive18% Mixed61% Negative
What customers love, and what they don’tWhat customers noticed
Customer reviews (262)
Add your reviewShowing 72 reviews mentioning surprise bill Show all
A solo developer whose Gemini spend cap did not stop a charge of about 5x the limit after a stolen key, then saw six support agents over five weeks and only a partial courtesy refund.
They had about 60000 euro of Gemini API calls exploited overnight against a 100 euro budget limit, and Google raised their tier automatically. Support only says to wait.
Their low-traffic e-learning site ran up about 3,000 rupees in one night against a 100 rupee budget, so they shut it down and moved to Vercel.
As a student founder with startup credits they were billed about 4000 GBP in 3 days for Claude models via Marketplace that credits did not cover, and support said it could not adjust the charge.
They had run one small VM on Google Cloud for years at about $10-11 a day, then a compromise ran up roughly $181,000 of Vertex AI charges. Support confirmed the compromise but refused any adjustment, citing a Startup classification, and costs kept accruing after billing was disabled.
Their Google Cloud account was charged $3,067 after a Gemini API key was stolen. Support was slow to respond at first, then refunded 50% after 28 days and 90% after 35 days.
They bought a translation app on a Google Cloud backend that cost about $1500 a month, then found a $450,000 charge in 1.5 months after a compromised API key. Google offered only $50k in credits, there was no easy hard spend cap, and they are migrating off.
As a student they used the $300 trial to host a Minecraft server on virtual machines and ended up with a $157 charge. Their billing account is closed and support redirects them to an automated assistant.
Their startup project on Google Cloud was hit by an exploited old service account that spammed Model Garden APIs for 20+ hours, producing a charge of about 600k they cannot pay.
An old public API key was abused for Gemini usage and ran up about $87K in 5 hours before the budget alert arrived. Google offered a $55K credit, leaving them about $32K to pay, and they plan to look for other providers.
A billing account and project they never created were generated in Google Cloud and they were charged $70. Support could only give a simple refund and could not fix the root cause.
A commitment applied on a FinOps recommendation led to a roughly $12,100 charge, and support first promised a full refund in writing then reversed to 50 percent after repeated agent handoffs.
A compromised service account was used to spin up VMs, producing an $8.8K bill; billing support denied the waiver and a debt recovery notice followed.
They lost about 2k through Google API keys with no limits, but after a month Google made them whole again.
They got a 47k dollar bill over two days and three months later have no resolution, so they have moved off Google where they can.
They used startup program credits and then got a 200 dollar overage bill while Vertex AI drained the rest of the credits after a tool used their Cloud account.
They accidentally paid for usage meant to be covered by student credits, and customer support helped them recover all of the money.
They report owing Google Cloud about 36K dollars after hackers abused their Maps API access to run up Gemini usage, and are seeking a Google contact.
They got hit with a huge Maps API bill, and after about a month of polite escalation requests got 90% credited back.
They ran a test data population for a local app and suddenly had a 400 dollar bill, having not realised how expensive the requests were.
They have an ongoing 55k dollar bill dispute and managed to get an escalation manager looking into their case.
A compromised Gemini API key ran up about $19,000 on their nearly idle account, charges kept growing after deleting everything, and billing support gave only generic replies.
They had a similar runaway bill over a year ago, negotiated it down to about 2k, and are still arguing with Google to reduce it.
Their Gemini API project had a $120 monthly spend cap but the system failed to throttle, producing over $1,800 in charges in one day.
Google support closed their case refusing any credit for charges from leaked API keys, saying the decision was final, and they consider legal action.
Their team faced $32,000 in charges within 24 hours, and their support case has been pending ten days with poor support.
They saw a huge Gemini API cost spike and charges continued after support said they would stop. Two weeks later their projects are still down and support was bounced around and useless.
They had a spend cap of 1500 INR but woke up to a 4000 INR bill and a suspended project, with no way to reach billing support.
They were charged about $5 a day for ten days, ignoring their $10 budget. Support eventually refunded around 90 percent.
Common questions about Google Cloud
Is Google Cloud worth it?
Of the 182 reviews with a clear verdict, 21% are positive, 18% mixed and 61% negative. The praise mentioned most is easy to use. The most common complaint is surprise bill.
What do people like about Google Cloud?
The praise reviewers mention most: easy to use (15 reviews), great value (5 reviews) and helpful support (5 reviews). For example: They find Google App Engine easier to set up and more secure than AWS offerings, and nearly free for small jobs.
What are the most common complaints about Google Cloud?
The complaints reviewers mention most: surprise bill (71 reviews), poor support (49 reviews) and outages (8 reviews). For example: On a small project they ran up $300 in two weeks just by leaving a VM on. They wanted spending caps by default.
What does the signal score of 63 mean?
It's how well reviewed Google Cloud is, out of 100. Negative and mixed reviews take points off, and so does having only a few reviews: a service needs plenty of them, compared with the most-reviewed services here, to reach the high 80s and 90s. It's worked out from reviews only, needs at least 5 of them, and updates as new ones come in.
What are the specs of Google Cloud?
Category: Cloud platform. Free plan: Yes.
Where do these Google Cloud reviews come from?
262 are quotes from Reddit, each linked to the original. Customer reviews are checked for spam before they appear. Every review, written here or quoted, is read as positive, mixed or negative.
