Google Cloud Free Tier will start charging for static or ephemeral IP Address?

Question

I am using Google Cloud Platform on their Free Tier (https://cloud.google.com/free/) to run a web server that can be accessed publicly (externally). I have setup everything under their Free Tier: F1-micro instance, standard VM instance with standard routing, etc. so I am not paying for it.

According to this: https://cloud.google.com/compute/all-pricing#ipaddress

Google will start charging for static and ephemeral IP addresses in use on standard VM instances at $0.004 per hour starting January 1st, 2020.

Is there any possible way to still have a completely free web server with public access using the Google Cloud Platform or is the lowest cost $2.92 USD per month because they will be charging for the use of an external IP address (AKA, no real Free Tier exists after January 1, 2020)?

Answer 1

Note: Google has changed this policy several times, in both directions, since this answer was first written. Your best bet is to verify the current policy on the free tier pricing page rather than relying on a Stack Overflow answer. However, as of this edit (May 2022), the following answer appears to be correct.

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At the top of the section that you linked it says:

Note: Starting January 1st, 2020, GCP will introduce an additional charge for publicly addressed VM instances that don't fall under the Free Tier.

Additionally, the free tier page states:

Note: Starting January 1st, 2020, GCP will charge for VM instance external IP addresses. However, under the Free Tier, in-use external IP addresses will be free until you have used a number of hours equal to the total hours in the current month. Free Tier for in-use external IP addresses apply to all instance types (not just f1.micro instances).

And, as of 2022:

Compute Engine free tier does not charge for an external IP address.

So, the additional pricing for IP addresses won't affect IP addresses attached to instances under the free tier (e.g. your f1-micro), but it is actually broader than that. Effectively, they are giving 1 free month worth of ip-address-hours every month, so (quota permitting) you could use 700+ addresses for 1 hour, or 1 address for the entire month.

Answer 2

Since I can no longer find the text referencing the "January 1st, 2020" pricing changes on the documentation, posting an update on what I can find now (October 2021).

First off, could not find any mention whatsoever of external IP addresses in the free tier page. However, the networking pricing page explicitly addresses this point:

You are charged for static and ephemeral external IP addresses according to the following table.

On the above mentioned table, one can clearly see that there is a charge for "Static and ephemeral IP addresses in use on standard/preemptible VM instances". The only "free" entry is this:

Static and ephemeral IP addresses attached to forwarding rules, used by Cloud NAT, or used as a public IP for a Cloud VPN tunnel: No charge

Not exactly sure how that would be useful for people who want to use VMs. The interesting sentence actually came before the table:

You are not charged for external IPv6 address ranges that are assigned to subnets or for external IPv6 addresses that are assigned to VM instances.

This had some potential, but there's a catch: the regions that support IPv6 (asia-east-1, asia-south1, europe-west2, us-west2) are not included in the Compute Engine free tier (us-west-1, us-central1, us-east1).

Conclusion: no more free external IPs, ephemeral or not. I have not verified this myself and would be happy if someone would confidently tell me that this is not the case.

At least in January 2022, after the free trial concluded, access to the command line API and even the web-based console's Compute Engine page was not possible without enabling billing.