{"rid":"storage/google-cloud-storage-always-free-tier","card":{"rid":"storage/google-cloud-storage-always-free-tier","eid":"google","topic":"storage","slug":"google-cloud-storage-always-free-tier","provider":"Google Cloud Storage Always Free tier","url":"https://cloud.google.com/free/docs/free-cloud-features","domain":"google.com","category":"iaas","tier":null,"verdict":"fails-quota","vorder":6,"grp":"rejected","confidence":"reported","binding":"per-ip-shaping","identity_kind":"card","identity_basis":"stated","needs_card":1,"needs_phone":0,"needs_id":0,"needs_institution":0,"country":null,"crypto":null,"interfaces":"s3,rest,rclone","egress_metered":1,"per_object_bytes":null,"retention_days":null,"verified_at":"2026-10-21T00:00:00.000Z","verified_basis":"inherited","checked_on":"2026-10-21","stale_on":"2026-11-04","n_evidence":4,"usd_month":null,"usd_per_tb_month":null,"summary":"5 GB-months of regional storage (US regions only) + 5,000 Class A ops + 50,000 Class B ops per month.","duplicate_of":null,"n_unknown":6},"record":{"topic":"storage","slug":"google-cloud-storage-always-free-tier","provider":"Google Cloud Storage Always Free tier","url":"https://cloud.google.com/free/docs/free-cloud-features","category":"iaas","free_tier":{"stated":"5 GB-months of regional storage (US regions only) + 5,000 Class A ops + 50,000 Class B ops per month.","unit":"GB","metered_on":"stored-bytes","source_url":"https://cloud.google.com/free/docs/free-cloud-features","read_on":"2026-10-21","notes":null},"per_object_cap":{"stated":"not stated","source_url":"https://cloud.google.com/free/docs/free-cloud-features","notes":"not stated"},"retention":{"stated":"not stated","source_url":"https://cloud.google.com/free/docs/free-cloud-features","notes":"not stated"},"egress":{"terms":"100 GB/month outbound to all destinations excluding China/Australia — described in the Always Free table as '100 GB of outbound data transfer from North America'. Beyond that it is $0.12/GiB, metered.","metered":true,"free_allowance":"100 GB per month"},"interface":["s3","rest","rclone"],"interface_detail":"s3","tooling":"Native S3-interoperable XML API + JSON API; rclone 'gcs' backend; gsutil/gcloud storage; signed URLs; HMAC keys make it literally S3.","chaining":"5 GB x N projects. Project creation is capped (~30 default before requesting increase) and soft-deleted projects still count for 30 days, so the practical ceiling is a few hundred GB, not TiB.","limits":[{"kind":"per-ip-shaping","value":"500 GB/day","source":"https://cloud.google.com/free/docs/free-cloud-features"}],"limits_note":"5 GB stored, 100 GB/mo egress, free tier restricted to us-east1/us-west1/us-central1; 5 TiB max object; anonymous writes are correctly refused.","identity_cost":{"kind":"card","detail":"derived from the record's prose, not from an identity field, and no signup was executed: e hot working set and egress beyond 100 GB/mo is metered at $0.12/GiB — a 500 GB/day serving load would cost ~$1,800/mo. 5 GB x N projects. Project creation is capped (~30 default be","country":null},"reliability_note":"Rock solid technically, but 5 GB is 0.05% of the hot working set and egress beyond 100 GB/mo is metered at $0.12/GiB — a 500 GB/day serving load would cost ~$1,800/mo.","confidence":"reported","confidence_note":"One page read moves it to documented.","evidence":[{"url":"https://cloud.google.com/free/docs/free-cloud-features","date":"2026-10-21","proved":"'Cloud Storage | 5 GB-months of regional storage (US regions only) per month … 100 GB of outbound data transfer from North America … per month'"},{"url":"https://cloud.google.com/storage/pricing","date":"2026-10-21","proved":"'Data transfer to Worldwide Destinations (excluding Asia & Australia) (per GB) 0 to 10 TiB — $0.12 / 1 GiB'"},{"url":"https://storage.googleapis.com/storage/v1/b/gcp-public-data-landsat","date":"2026-10-21","proved":"probe: GET -> 200 (public buckets are anonymously listable/readable — useful for reading, irrelevant for storage)"},{"url":"https://storage.googleapis.com/gcp-public-data-landsat/probe.txt","date":"2026-10-21","proved":"probe: PUT (anonymous) -> 403 (no anonymous write path)"}],"verdict":"fails-quota","verified_at":"2026-10-21T00:00:00.000Z","notes":"5 GB-months of regional storage (US regions only) + 5,000 Class A ops + 50,000 Class B ops per month.","extras":{"dead_end":{"failure_class":"quota","why":"5 GB-months of regional storage (US regions only) + 5,000 Class A ops + 50,000 Class B ops per month.","retry_when":null,"first_recorded":"2026-10-21"}},"binding":"per-ip-shaping","binding_note":"one stream is shaped, and a user's throughput is the shaped rate times the number of streams"},"claims":[{"path":"$.free_tier.stated","kind":"free-quota","num":5,"unit":"GB","per":null,"currency":null,"usd":null,"fx_date":null,"parse":"ok"},{"path":"$.limits[0].value","kind":"limit:per-ip-shaping","num":500,"unit":"GB","per":"day","currency":null,"usd":null,"fx_date":null,"parse":"ok"}],"unknown":[["$.extras.dead_end.retry_when","process"],["$.free_tier.notes","process"],["$.per_object_cap.notes","not-extracted"],["$.per_object_cap.stated","not-extracted"],["$.retention.notes","not-extracted"],["$.retention.stated","not-extracted"]],"history":[],"drift":[]}