Yes, a small API fits in Cloud Run’s free tier. On request-based billing in us-central1, you get 2 million requests, 180,000 vCPU-seconds, and 360,000 GiB-seconds per month (Cloud Run pricing). The catches are the billing-mode choice, the $300 trial cliff, and separate charges for source deploys.
About this guide: This guide covers Cloud Run’s 2026 free-tier limits, paid rates, billing-mode differences, trial rules, and source-deploy costs. It is based on Google Cloud documentation and pricing pages read on 2026-10-19. It involves no hands-on testing, and it is written for indie hackers choosing free-tier hosting.
What Is the Cloud Run Free Tier in 2026? (Exact Numbers)
The Cloud Run free tier in 2026 is a monthly spend discount that resets every month and applies per billing account. On request-based billing in us-central1 it covers 2 million requests, 180,000 vCPU-seconds, and 360,000 GiB-seconds, per Google’s Cloud Run pricing page and the free program limits.
Google applies the free tier as a discount on Tier 1 pricing, so you pay only for usage past the free tier. If you use 200,000 vCPU-seconds in a month, the first 180,000 are discounted and only the remaining 20,000 are billed. Three details matter for planning:
- No rollover. Free tier limits do not roll over from month to month (free program limits). Unused allowance expires at reset.
- Mode matters. The limits above are request-based. The instance-based numbers differ, as the next section shows.
- Region matters. Pricing depends on region. This guide uses us-central1 as the basis, so check your own region on the pricing page before you plan costs.
The Billing-Mode Trap: Instance-Based vs Request-Based
The billing-mode trap starts here: Cloud Run has two billing modes with different free tiers. Instance-based billing gets 240,000 vCPU-seconds and 450,000 GiB-seconds per month, while request-based billing gets 180,000 vCPU-seconds, 360,000 GiB-seconds, and 2 million requests, per Google’s Cloud Run pricing page.
In this guide’s reading, instance-based billing fits always-on services and request-based billing fits spiky or low-traffic APIs. Google’s billing settings guide explains both modes. A larger allowance does not guarantee a lower bill, because the mode decides what is metered and at what rate. Instance-based paid CPU is $0.000018 per vCPU-second, below the request-based active rate of $0.000024, so the mode you pick changes both your allowance and your rate.
Minimum instances add a cost that request-based billing otherwise avoids. Idle time on minimum instances is billed at $0.0000025 per vCPU-second, about one-tenth of the active rate, while idle memory is billed at $0.0000025 per GiB-second, the same as active memory. Read the minimum instances documentation before you turn them on.
If you also run serverless functions, see our Cloudflare Workers free tier guide 2026.
Instance-Based vs Request-Based at a Glance
Instance-based and request-based billing differ most in free requests, free compute, and paid rates, so the table below puts them side by side for us-central1. The figures come from Google’s Cloud Run pricing page, which lists both modes. Use it as a checklist before you pick a mode.
Cloud Run Free Tier: Instance-Based vs Request-Based Billing (us-central1, 2026)
| Row | Instance-Based | Request-Based |
|---|---|---|
| Free vCPU-seconds/month | 240,000 | 180,000 |
| Free GiB-seconds/month (memory) | 450,000 | 360,000 |
| Free requests/month | Not listed | 2,000,000 |
| Paid CPU rate | $0.000018/vCPU-sec | $0.000024/vCPU-sec (active); $0.0000025/vCPU-sec idle with min instances |
| Paid memory rate | $0.000002/GiB-sec | $0.0000025/GiB-sec (active) |
| Paid requests | Not listed | $0.40 per 1M |
| Best for | Always-on services | Spiky / low-traffic APIs |
Free tier is a spend discount on Tier 1 pricing, applied per billing account, reset monthly, and region-dependent. Sources: Cloud Run pricing and free program limits.
Read the table with two questions in mind. Which mode bills the usage pattern you actually have? And does the request allowance matter? Request-based is the only column that lists free requests, so a low-traffic API gets a second free bucket that the instance-based column does not show.
What a Real Side-Project API Costs (Paid-Rate Walkthrough)
A real side-project API costs about $5.45 a month at paid rates in the sample workload below, and the free tier cuts that to $0.48 out of pocket. The rates are $0.000024 per active vCPU-second, $0.0000025 per active GiB-second, and $0.40 per million requests (Cloud Run pricing).
The workload is hypothetical: one 1 vCPU, 512 MiB (0.5 GiB) instance, 1 million requests a month, and 200,000 seconds of active instance time. That active time yields 200,000 vCPU-seconds (200,000 × 1 vCPU) and 100,000 GiB-seconds (200,000 × 0.5 GiB). Your numbers will differ.
Step 1: Paid cost before the free tier
- CPU: 200,000 × $0.000024 = $4.80
- Memory: 100,000 × $0.0000025 = $0.25
- Requests: 1,000,000 ÷ 1,000,000 × $0.40 = $0.40
- Subtotal: $4.80 + $0.25 + $0.40 = $5.45
Step 2: Apply the free tier, capped at what you actually use
- CPU: 180,000 free vCPU-seconds cover 180,000 of 200,000. Discount: 180,000 × $0.000024 = $4.32. Billable: 20,000 × $0.000024 = $0.48.
- Memory: 360,000 free GiB-seconds cover all 100,000. Discount: 100,000 × $0.0000025 = $0.25. Billable: $0.00.
- Requests: 2,000,000 free requests cover all 1,000,000. Discount: 1,000,000 ÷ 1,000,000 × $0.40 = $0.40. Billable: $0.00.
- Total discount: $4.32 + $0.25 + $0.40 = $4.97
- Out of pocket: $5.45 − $4.97 = $0.48
The request allowance is worth $0.40 to this workload, not the $0.80 that the full 2 million would imply, because you cannot discount requests you never send.
Step 3: Trim active time to 180,000 seconds (same 1M requests)
- Assumption: the same 1M requests finish in 180,000 active seconds. This is a what-if, not a measurement.
- CPU: 180,000 × $0.000024 = $4.32; memory: 90,000 GiB-seconds × $0.0000025 = $0.225
- Subtotal: $4.32 + $0.225 + $0.40 = $4.945, fully covered by the free tier (180,000 vCPU-seconds, 90,000 GiB-seconds, and 1M requests all sit inside the allowances)
- Out of pocket: $0.00
Recheck your own numbers with the Google Cloud Pricing Calculator. This arithmetic excludes outbound transfer beyond 1 GiB and any source-deploy build costs.
The Hidden Cost of Deploying from Source
Deploying from source on Cloud Run can add charges, because Cloud Build and Artifact Registry bill separately from Cloud Run, and Artifact Registry’s free tier covers only 0.5 GB of storage per month (free program limits). Old images accumulate in storage, so cleanup matters.
A source deploy builds a container image with Cloud Build and stores it in Artifact Registry before Cloud Run runs it. Cloud Run pricing does not include Cloud Build or Artifact Registry charges, so your bill can show costs under those services even when the Cloud Run line is zero. Check both pricing pages before you rely on the free-tier arithmetic.
Cloud Build includes 2,500 build-minutes per month on the e2-standard-2 machine type (free program limits); usage beyond that is billed under Cloud Build pricing.
Three habits keep this cost small:
- Delete old images. Remove container images you no longer run so storage stays within the free allowance.
- Build locally when you can. Containerize on your own machine and push the image, which skips a Cloud Build run for that deploy.
- Read the deploy docs. Google’s deploying source code guide explains what a source deploy creates.
The Free-Trial Cliff: $300, 90 Days, and the 30-Day Grace Period
The Google Cloud Free Trial gives a $300 Welcome credit valid for 90 days on a non-billable account. When it ends, billing is disabled, a 30-day grace period follows, and trial resources are permanently deleted if you do not upgrade within it (free program limits).
The trial closes early if you spend the $300 before 90 days pass, so track spending as well as the calendar. Upgrading to a Paid billing account keeps trial resources running, so decide before the trial closes. The Google Cloud free offers page and the billing account documentation cover the upgrade path.
Set a calendar reminder for day 75 of the trial, which leaves about two weeks to decide. Add budget alerts so spending warnings reach you before the credit runs out. If your side project keeps data in a database on the trial account, export it before the grace period ends. Treat permanent deletion as final, and treat the 30 days as a deadline for backups, not a safety net.
For a running log of limit and trial changes, see the free tier change tracker 2026.
Fine Print That Saves You Money
Several pieces of fine print cut Cloud Run charges: requests denied by IAM are not billed, idle instances that are not minimum instances are not charged, and traffic between Cloud Run services in the same region is free, per Google’s pricing page.
- IAM controls. Use Cloud Run IAM roles to control who can invoke your service. Requests that IAM denies are not billed.
- Same-region calls. Traffic between Cloud Run services in the same region is not charged, so calls between your own services in one region are free.
- Idle instances. Instances that are not minimum instances are not charged while idle (Cloud Run pricing).
- Committed use discounts. Committed use discounts lower continuous Cloud Run cost. Cloud Run CUDs apply only to Cloud Run resources; Compute Flexible CUDs also span GKE and Compute Engine.
- Outbound transfer. You get 1 GiB per month of free outbound transfer from North America. Beyond that, Google Cloud network pricing applies on the Premium network tier.
For another platform’s free tier, see our Cloudflare R2 free tier guide 2026.
Cloud Run vs Cloud Run Functions (Don’t Mix Up the Free Tiers)
Cloud Run functions (1st gen) has its own free tier, separate from Cloud Run’s limits: 2 million invocations, 400,000 GB-seconds, 200,000 GHz-seconds, and 5 GB of outbound data, per the free program limits. Check carefully which product you deploy before you count.
The two products use different units and different allowances, so a number from one page does not apply to the other. Functions you deploy to Cloud Run from source are different: Google says they “operate as Cloud Run services and are billed accordingly” under the Cloud Run limits above (Cloud Run pricing). Cloud Run functions (1st gen) uses invocations, GB-seconds, GHz-seconds, and outbound data. Its pricing is on the Cloud Run functions 1st-gen pricing page, and its docs are in the Cloud Run functions documentation. For an edge-runtime comparison, see the Cloudflare Workers guide linked in the billing-mode section.
FAQ: Cloud Run Free Tier Questions
Most readers asking about the Cloud Run free tier want to know whether a side project stays free, what the trial does to running services, and whether source deploys add costs. The answers below rest on Google’s Cloud Run pricing and free program limits.
Is Cloud Run really free for a small side project?
For many small side projects, yes, on request-based billing in us-central1. The free tier covers 2 million requests, 180,000 vCPU-seconds, and 360,000 GiB-seconds per month, and the walkthrough workload in this guide comes to $0.00 out of pocket once its CPU is trimmed to 180,000 vCPU-seconds. Heavier traffic or more always-on capacity can push you past it.
What happens when my Google Cloud free trial ends?
Billing is disabled when the $300 Welcome credit is spent or 90 days pass without an upgrade. A 30-day grace period follows, and if you do not upgrade within it, trial resources are permanently deleted. Upgrading to a Paid billing account keeps your trial resources running (free program limits).
Does deploying from source on Cloud Run cost extra?
Yes, it can. Source deploys use Cloud Build and Artifact Registry, which bill separately from Cloud Run. Artifact Registry’s free tier is 0.5 GB of storage per month (free program limits), so delete old container images and check the Cloud Build pricing before deploying often.
The Bottom Line
For a small, low-traffic API, request-based billing plus the free tier makes Cloud Run a free host for many side projects, since the walkthrough workload above comes to $0.00 out of pocket once its CPU is trimmed to 180,000 vCPU-seconds (Cloud Run pricing).
Cloud Run is generous for a small API, but only if you pick request-based billing on purpose and check the billing mode before you count the free tier. Put the trial’s 90-day mark on a calendar and back up data before the 30-day grace period ends. Watch the side costs too, because Cloud Build and Artifact Registry bill separately, so clean up old images. If you plan to combine free tiers across services, see our Supabase free tier guide 2026.
How This Guide Was Built
This guide is based on Google Cloud’s official Cloud Run pricing and free-program pages, read on 2026-10-19, and it is not a hands-on review. Figures may change, so check the linked Cloud Run pricing page carefully before you rely on them.
Every figure traces to a Google Cloud page linked in the text. Where a detail is not published in those sources, this guide leaves it out instead of estimating it. The walkthrough is arithmetic on published rates, not a forecast, and no service was deployed or measured for this guide.