Hello @ish1 ,Welcome on Google Cloud Community.
Each course or lab have field which indicate wether participation is free or not. As you can see on my screenshot, course " Introduction to Data Analytics on Google Cloud" is free of charge. It means that you are not forced to use credits for that.
Same thing for SOAR course
If you have lab which require credits, you will see this by looking at “note” icon.
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cheers,
DamianS
LinkedIn medium.com Cloudskillsboost