# Google App Engine Billing FAQ - Google App Engine - Google Code

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# Google App Engine Billing FAQ

## Getting started

- Which resources can I purchase additional quota for?
- I'm unable to sign up for a Google Checkout account.
- Why isn't my country listed in the drop-down list on the Set Budget page?
- How do I associate a Google Checkout account with my app for billing?
- If I have enabled billing for one of my applications already, why do I have to do it again for my other apps?
- Am I able to use a normal Google Account to manage a Google Apps-hosted app?
- What is the difference between the maximum daily budget and the Google Checkout authorized charge limit?
- Why is the value shown in Google Checkout different from my maximum daily budget?
- What is a VAT ID and why is it optional?
- Is the $9/app/month a fee or a minimum spend?
- What does the Premier cost of "$500/account" mean? Per Google Apps Account? Per Developer Account? Per Application Owner Account?

## Administering

- I would like to switch my billed admin account.
- How do I update my credit card number or other billing information?
- Do I have to re-enable billing after updating my billing information?
- Why do I have to sign a new recurring payment agreement with Google Checkout when I raise my budget?
- Why is my account in a manual review state and what does that mean?
- What happens if I change my maximum daily budget in the middle of the day?

## Managing quotas

- How much free quota does each App Engine app receive?
- What happens to my free quota once I've enabled billing?
- Are billable resources rate-limited?
- How can I track or verify my quota usage?
- Do my datastore indexes consume my billable quota?
- What if I anticipate even more traffic than allowed by the per-minute quotas?
- Are logs counted as part of "Storage Quota"?

## Instance pricing

- What is the difference between dynamic instances and resident instances?
- How will I be charged for partial units?
- Should I assume I will be charged for the number of instances currently being shown in the Admin console?
- What is the time granularity of the instance pricing? ie if I have an instance up for 5 minutes, what am I charged, $0.08 / 60*5?
- Can prepaid instance-hours be used the following week?
- Is there free quota for Backends?

## Making payments

- How are currency conversions handled?
- Why am I being charged for storing more data than I've actually uploaded?
- My credit card was declined. What happened?
- Why hasn't my payment shown up yet?
- What happens if my credit card is declined or I otherwise can't make my payment?

## Disabling

- How do I disable billing for my application?
- How do I cancel my recurring charge authorization?
- What happens to my balance once I disable billing?
- What happens to my data when I disable billing?

## Other

- What are my options if my application experienced a Denial of Service (DoS) attack?
- I have a question related to billing that isn't addressed here. Where can I get an answer?

## Getting started

#### Which resources can I purchase additional quota for?

If your app is a paid app, you can set a single budget for resource usage in your app. Once you exceed the free quotas, your app will continue to serve traffic until your budget is exhausted.

#### I'm unable to sign up for a Google Checkout account.

Google Checkout's Troubleshooting page provides information to help troubleshoot sign-up issues.

#### Why isn't my country listed in the drop-down list on the Set Budget page?

If your country isn't listed in this drop-down list, Google Checkout is not available in your country and you will not be able to enable billing for your application. If your application requires additional quota, you can submit a request using this form.

#### How do I associate a Google Checkout account with my app for billing?

Sign in to App Engine, select your app and navigate to its Billing Settings page. If you haven't already enabled billing, click the "Enable billing for this Application" link and follow the setup process, including associating your Google Checkout account.

For more details, see Billing.

#### If I have enabled billing for one of my applications already, why do I have to do it again for my other apps?

We want to provide developers with fine-grained control over each of their applications. They may wish to have a separate budget for different apps, or apps that run entirely on free quota, rather than a single budget for each.

#### Am I able to use a Google Account to manage a Google Apps-hosted app?

Yes, any account can manage any application. You can sign into Google App Engine with your Google Apps account by visiting https://appengine.google.com/a/[yourdomain.com].

To learn more about the difference between Google Accounts and Google Apps Accounts, see Google Accounts Help.

#### What is the difference between the maximum daily budget and the Google Checkout authorized charge limit?

When you first enable billing, you are required to authorize a Google Checkout charge limit which represents the maximum amount that you can be charged through Google Checkout for App Engine resources used by this application. After your authorization request is processed, you are free to adjust your maximum daily budget to any value lower than this limit. If you want to set a maximum daily budget that exceeds this limit, you must authorize a new charge limit with Checkout—afterwards, you'll be able to adjust your max daily budget up to this amount.

#### Why is the value shown in Google Checkout different from my maximum daily budget?

In certain countries, a tax is applied to your App Engine charges. Checkout will include the amount of the tax in your authorized charge limit, as well as the $2.10/week minumum spend as well as any prepaid instance hours.

#### What is a VAT ID and why is it optional?

Value Added Tax (VAT) charges are applied to European Union businesses in addition to the cost of the service. For more information, see the note about VAT guidelines in the Google Apps help center.

#### Is the $9/app/month a fee or a minimum spend?

The $9/month is a minimum cost required to utilize resources beyond the free quotas. This minimum cost covers the first $9 worth of usage in a given month, and you pay extra only for any additional resources your app uses. The $500/account/month charge will still be a flat fee as it covers the cost of operational support; it does not count toward resource usage.

#### What does the Premier cost of "$500/account" mean? Per Google Apps Account? Per Developer Account? Per Application Owner Account?

It is per Organization (which would translate into per Google Apps account if you are currently a Google Apps customer). So, for example, if you are working at example.com and you signed up for a Premier account, all example.com users will be able to create apps which are billed to the example.com account.

## Administering

#### I would like to switch my billed admin account.

Billing administration can be transferred from one Google Account to another through the following steps:

1. Sign in to App Engine using the account you wish to make the billed administrator.
2. Select the account you wish to switch billing for.
3. Access the "Billing Settings" page.
4. Select "Take over as billed administrator."

You will then be guided through confirmation before transferring ownership over to the new administrator.

For more details, see Billing.

#### How do I update my credit card number or other billing information?

If you wish to make changes to the billing information included in your Google Checkout account, refer to the Billing and Shipping FAQ page. To modify your billing settings for a specific App Engine app, sign in to your App Engine account, select your app, and navigate to its Billing Settings page.

#### Do I have to re-enable billing after updating my billing information?

No. Once you update your credit card number, billing address, or other billing information using Google Checkout, App Engine will automatically use this new information for your next statement. You do not need to re-enable billing or cancel your recurring charge authorization first.

#### Why do I have to sign a new recurring payment agreement with Google Checkout when I raise my budget?

The agreement you sign with Google Checkout simply authorizes App Engine to charge your credit card up to a certain amount each week, depending on your app's usage of App Engine. If you want to raise the budget for this app, you'll need to sign a new agreement so that we can charge up to the new, higher amount if your usage requires it.

If you lower your budget, you don't need to sign a new agreement, because you've already authorized us to charge up to this amount. We'll never charge you more than what you've set as your daily budget.

#### Why is my account in a manual review state and what does that mean?

An account can enter a manual review state for two reasons:

1. The billing administrator disabled billing—while billing is being disabled, your application may remain in this state for up to seven days.
2. An application administrator explicitly requested a manual review of the account.

While an application is in this state, changes cannot be made to any of the billing settings.

#### What happens if I change my maximum daily budget in the middle of the day?

Your application's maximum daily budget is set to the highest budget that you specified during the course of the day (before midnight PST). For example, if you enter $4.00 in the Max Daily Budget field and then adjust it to $2.00 later in the day, you may still be billed up to $4.00 for that day.

## Managing quotas

#### How much free quota does each App Engine app receive?

Several different resources have free quotas. See the Billing page for more information. The Admin Console's Quotas page lists every quota and provides a breakdown of how much your application is consuming per resource.

#### What happens to my free quota once I've switched to a paid app?

Free quota remains the same once billing is enabled. An app won't be charged until it exceeds its free quota, at which point the billed administrator will be charged based on any such usage up to the maximum daily budget.

For more information on how enabling billing adjusts the free quotas, see Quotas.

#### Are billable resources rate-limited?

Billable resources are limited by your overall budget and may also correspond to safety quotas. You can check the status of each from the Quota Details page in the Admin Console.

For more info on per-minute limits, see Quotas.

#### How can I track or verify my quota usage?

Sign in to the Admin Console and select the application you wish you inspect. Quota usage is located within the "Quota Details" page. Additional usage information may be found on the app's "Usage History" page, linked from the left-hand navigation.

#### Do my datastore indexes consume my billable quota?

Yes, datastore indexes do count against an application's storage quota. There are three general index types: kind for querying entities by type, property for querying entities by a single property value, and custom for complex queries using multiple sort orders or a combination of equality and inequality filters. For a detailed breakdown of these three types and the data stored for each, see How Entities and Indexes are Stored. Indexes also consume more of your datastore operations limit. For more information, see the Datastore Resource Limits.

#### What if I anticipate even more traffic than allowed by the per-minute quotas?

If you anticipate your traffic will exceed the per-minute quotas, you can request additional quota using this form.

#### How will I be charged for partial units?

Your actual usage of any resource on a given day will be rounded down to the nearest base unit and then rounded up to the nearest cent. The base units for the adjustable quotas are:

- Instance hours: 1 instance hour. See Instance Billing for more details.
- Bandwidth in/out: 1 byte
- Storage: 1 byte
- Email: 1 email

For example, if your app transfers 21,582,210,662 bytes over and above the amount allowed by the free quota, this is equivalent to $2.412 (at $0.12 per GB transferred out). The charge for that day would then be $2.42 for this resource.

#### Are logs counted as part of "Storage Quota"?

No, only a limited number of logs are currently stored per app and they are not counted against storage quota.

## Instance Pricing

#### What is the difference between dynamic instances and resident instances?

Resident and dynamic instances both serve incoming requests. When dynamic instances finish serving a request, they may be taken down by App Engine's scheduler. However, resident instances remain available, even if they aren't serving traffic.

#### Should I assume that I will be charged for the number of instances currently shown in the Administration Console?

There is a line on the Instances graph in the Admin Console showing the approximate number of instances for which you are being billed.

#### What is the time granularity of the instance pricing? For example, if I have an instance up for 5 minutes, what am I charged, $0.08 / 60*5?

Instances are charged for their uptime in addition to a 15-minute startup fee, the startup fee covers what it takes for App Engine to bring up and down the instance. So, if you have an dynamic instance only serving traffic for 5 minutes, you will pay for 5+15 minutes, or $0.08 / 60 * 20 = 2.6 cents. Additionally, if the instance stops and then starts again within a 15 minute window, the startup fee will only be charged once and the instance will be considered "up" for the time that passed. For example, if an dynamic instance is serving traffic for 5 min, is then down for 4 minutes and then serving traffic for 3 more minutes, you will pay for (5+4+3)+15 minutes, or $0.08 / 60 * 27 = 3.6 cents.

#### Can prepaid instance-hours be used the following week?

Unfortunately, no. If you pre-commit to a set of resident instance-hours for a week you will be charged for those instance-hours, regardless of whether you use them that week.

#### Is there free quota for Backends?

Yes, each app gets 9 hours of backend quota per day for free.

## Making payments

#### How are currency conversions handled?

Currency conversion is handled by Google Checkout. For additional details regarding currency conversion, refer to the Google Checkout Currency Conversion page.

#### Why am I being charged for storing more data than I've actually uploaded?

The process by which quota consumption is measured is outlined in the documentation page on quotas. As outlined on that page, quota cost may include metadata overhead. You can review your data storage statistics in the Datastore Statistics tab of the Admin Console.

#### My credit card was declined. What happened?

Refer to Google Checkout's Troubleshooting page for additional information regarding why a card may be declined.

#### Why hasn't my payment shown up yet?

It may take up to three days for your payment to register. You can verify your order by signing in to Google Checkout and referring to your Orders listing.

#### What happens if my credit card is declined or I otherwise can't make my payment?

You have up to 30 days after a payment is due to pay your outstanding balance. If payment has not been received after 30 days, all of your quotas will be reverted to the default levels. If payment has not been received after 90 days, we reserve the right to stop serving traffic to your site until any outstanding balance is paid off. To re-enable billing by paying your outstanding balance, follow the instructions on the Billing Settings page.

## Disabling

#### How do I disable billing for my application?

Any application administrator can disable billing. For instructions on how to do this, see the documentation on disabling billing.

#### How do I cancel my recurring charge authorization?

While any application administrator can disable billing, only the billed administrator who authorized the Google Checkout weekly charge limit can cancel the recurring charge authorization. When billing is enabled, billed administrators will see a checkbox labeled "Cancel Google Checkout Recurring Charge Authorization" underneath the "Disable Billing" button. If this box is checked when billing is disabled, a cancellation request will be logged. It may take up to 7 days to process this request, but you will receive an email notification immediately containing your request and a second notification when the request has been completed. Once the authorization cancellation has been requested, billing cannot be re-enabled for that application until the request is completed.

Note that when you cancel your recurring charge authorization, you will be billed through Checkout for charges accumulated as of the date of your cancellation. You will not be billed for use charges after that date.

#### What happens to my balance once I disable billing?

When you cancel a recurring charge, you will be billed through Checkout for charges accumulated as of the date of your cancellation. You will not be billed for use charges after that date.

#### What happens to my data when I disable billing?

If your app has more data stored than allowed by the free quotas, your application may lose access to that data when you disable billing. Charges for that stored data will continue to accrue until the balance is paid in full.

## Other

#### What are my options if my application experienced a Denial of Service (DoS) attack?

If you believe your application has been the target of a denial of service attack, please contact our support team and include a snippet of your request logs that corroborates this, along with an explanation of why this activity indicates an attack. You may be issued a credit for the service for this period of time.

To access your logs, you can use our log export tool. Note that only the most recent 90 days of requests logs will be available for download, so it's important to file your grievance soon after the incident. Please refer to the App Engine SLA for more information.

#### I have a question related to billing that isn't addressed here. Where can I get an answer?

If you have a billing issue or question that isn't explicitly answered in the FAQ entries above, please complete the billing issues form and a Google support representative will respond to you shortly.