Find out how to interpret your Google bill and optimize your spend by aligning the costs you see (in GCP console) with actions performed in Terra.
For more details, see Overview: Terra costs and GCP cloud resources.
To see how to view cloud spend directly in Terra, See Displaying Google Cloud costs (Billing project owners).
How to view detailed Google Cloud charges
Owners and admins of Google Cloud Billing accounts can access detailed billing reports at the Cloud Billing account and Google project level on Google Cloud console. For workspaces created after September 27, 2021, you can view how much of each service (i.e., data storage, VM) is used per month in the workspace.
1. Navigate to https://console.cloud.google.com/ and select the workspace Google project name from the dropdown at the top. The project name will have the format <Terra-billing-project-name>--<workspace-name>
.
HINT: Finding the workspace projectTo make sure you are seeing the Google project associated with the workspace you're interested in, you can cross-reference with the Google ID, which you can find on the workspace dashboard under Workspace Information.
2. In the Billing card on the right, select the View detailed charges link.
Don't see any cost reporting info on GCP console? You need to have owner, admin or viewer permissions on the Cloud Billing account to see cost reports on GCP console. If what you see doesn't match the descriptions or screenshots below, that is likely because you do not have the right permission.
3. In the Reports page, you can filter by time range, SKUs, services, projects, and more.
4. To view costs for a specific task, select the date range (on the right) and filter out storage costs by selecting Compute Engine (under Service). You can make a custom date range, too.
5. Running workflows and Interactive Analysis tasks (such as creating cloud environments) both use compute engine. If you perform multiple of these tasks on the same day, you will see all costs combined on your Google bill.
Examples by use-case
Below are a few examples of typical costs for running a workflow and a Cloud Environment analysis, along with the corresponding Google cost report.
1. Joint Genotyping workflow in the Exome Analysis Pipeline
Cost: $3.50
Breakdown of the Google bill
2. Running a Cloud Environment w/ default 50GB Persistent Disk
Cloud Environment components
Breakdown of the Google bill (Cloud Environment was active for 1 hour)
Pricing breakdown by SKU
To better predict the charges for a given configuration, use the GCP pricing calculator.
Below is a breakdown of SKUs on your Google bill, what they represent, their typical price, and the actions they correspond to in Terra. See the Google Cloud Platform SKUs for the complete list.
SKU |
Meaning |
Price |
Action in Terra |
Preemptible N1 Predefined Instance Core running in Americas
Preemptible N1 Predefined Instance Ram running in Americas
Preemptible Custom Instance Core running in Americas
Preemptible Custom Instance Ram running in Americas
|
When you use an Instance (a VM) on Google Cloud, you are charged based on how long you use the instance, the amount of virtual CPUs (Cores), and the amount of memoryRam). The amount of cores and ram on a machine is often referred to as the "shape" of the machine. Google Cloud also offers different machine families, each with a curated set of processor and hardware configurations. N1 Predefined is one of these families. You can also create an instance with your own custom machine type. See vm-instance-pricing for more details. You also have the option to make your instance preemptible. A preemptible VM is an instance you can create and run at a much lower price than normal instances. However, Compute Engine might stop (preempt) these instances if it requires access to those resources for other tasks. Instances are run on physical machines in different data centers around the world, so location availability (like one running in Americas) is considered in pricing. |
0.031611 USD per hour
0.004237 USD per gibibyte hour
0.00698 USD per hour
0.00698 USD per hour
|
Running a workflow Launching a Cloud Environment |
Multi-Region Standard Class A Operations |
Each time you perform one of the Class A Operations listed here in operations-by-class, it is one count. Ex. If you look at files in the data section of the workspace, it is performing an API call to show you what is in Google Bucket, which incurs a charge |
0.005 USD per 1,000 count |
Browsing files section in data tab Running a workflow Running a notebook Viewing or downloading data from the browser |
Storage PD Capacity |
Standard Persistent Disk storage |
0.00 USD (Free) per gibibyte month, for 0 to 30 gibibyte month, per month per account 0.04 USD per gibibyte month, for 30 gibibyte month and above, per month per account |
Launching a Cloud Environment with persistent disk Running a workflow |
External IP Charge on a Preemptible VM |
For a VM to have external network access, it needs to have an external IP address. There is an additional charge for this. You could create a VM with no external network access to avoid this charge. See network pricing for more details. |
0.002 USD per hour |
Running a workflow Launching a Spark cluster |
Standard Storage US Multi-region |
Storing your data in a Google bucket will accrue charges based on your region. |
0.026 USD per gibibyte month< |
Storing files in workspace bucket |
Network data transfer via Carrier Peering Network - Americas Based
|
You can use a non-Google service provider (CenturyLink, Verizon, etc) to access Google Workspace applications. This is not a part of Google Cloud technically, but there is a Google Cloud charge to transfer data out of Google, through the service provider and onto your infrastructure. This charge is known as "Network Data Transfer". |
0.04 USD per gibibyte |
Downloading files to local machine Copying files from GCP to another cloud provider |
Multi-Region Standard Class B Operations |
Each time you perform one of the Class B Operations listed here in operations-by-class, it is one count. |
0.004 USD per 10,000 count |
Browsing files section in data tab Running a workflow Running a notebook Viewing or downloading data from the browser |
Network Google Ingress from Americas to Americas Network Internet Ingress from APAC to Americas Network Internet Ingress from Americas to Americas Network Internet Ingress from China to Americas |
Ingress is when data is transferred through the network and into Google. network ingress is free. |
0.00 USD (Free) per gibibyte |
Uploading files |
Network Internet data transfer from Americas to Americas |
Data stored in Americas in Google Cloud Platform, was downloaded from Americas |
0.00 USD (Free) per gibibyte, for 0 to 1 gibibyte, per month per account 0.12 USD per gibibyte, for 1 to 1,024 gibibyte, per month per account 0.11 USD per gibibyte, for 1,024 to 10,240 gibibyte, per month per account 0.08 USD per gibibyte, for 10,240 gibibyte and above, per month per account |
Downloading files to local machine Copying files from GCP to another cloud provider Running a workflow or cloud environment VM if the bucket is in a specific US region (like us-east), and downloaded to a workflow/ cloud environment VM in a different US region (like us-west) *Note that the default for Terra buckets is us-central-1 regional by default (data transfer is free to VMs in the default region). |