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google-cloud-platformgoogle-text-to-speech

Is Google Text-to-Speech is free after the first year?

I am aware that Google Text-to-Speech is priced per 1 million characters of text processed after a 1 million character free tier. Google prices are like the following,

Feature                         Monthly free tier
Standard (Non-WaveNet) voices   0 to 4 million characters
WaveNet voices                  0 to 1 million characters

And when we are going to enable Google Text-To-Speech google says that we need to enter the billing address. (Credit or Debit card details) And it says 1st year is free and we will receive $300 for the 1st year. So here are my questions,

  1. What if I enter fake billing details? Do they check if I have money or any validation for fake details?

    (Because I don't need to enter my card details as I am afraid of my money will lose. Google said that they will ask me to pay and not charge automatically after the 1st year. But I don't need to give billing details)

  2. Google says they will give 1 million characters per month. Do they give 1 million for every month? And what after the 1st year? Will, they stop giving 1 million per month or those free tiers are forever like 1 million for every month for every user in every year?

Solution

  • The free tier is always available, with our without promotional credit. I mean, even for very big company.

    This quota is per month. Other are also per days. Some per project and other per subscription (for all projects like Cloud Build). In your case, it's not clear if it's per project or per subscription. In general, without special mention, it's per project. Open a case to the support if you want to be sure.

    You have to read carefully the pricing page and performing simulation with pricing calculator

    However, the free quota, and the prices, can be update at any time.

    In case of no payment, all the ressources in project are stoped/blocked. By the way, for professional use, it's recommended to have 2 payments method per billing account -> In case of failure of the first payment method, there the second one as backup.

    Now, you have to manage your risk. If you have a commercial use of your solution with SLA, real customer,(...), I recommend you not to play with this. If it's just for testing and playing with the platform, why not!