Last month I created an e2-micro instance in europe-west3 (Frankfurt), which is supposedly billed ~7-8 USD/EUR monthly. However, I’ve been billed about 4x this value. I contacted Support and got various unusual replies:
The first person I talked to told me “e2-micro” does not exist and I should be looking at regular e2 pricing. I linked the pricing page to her and pointed to the e2-micro section, but she claimed it is not showing up for her in her browser. Perhaps some issue with her browser? She also sent me a pricing calculator link where the price is indeed very high, but again, she did not select e2-micro, but some other type of instance.
The second person I talked to: e2-micro does exist, but its pricing page is wrong. I was told the pricing page will be fixed asap, but I see the same values on the pricing page as before (not that I trusted this person either, like the first person she sounded like she has no GCP context/experience). This person claimed the actual price should be $48/month (this is even higher than what I was charged) which I assume is again pricing for a different type of instance.
The third person I talked to seems to reiterate what the second person told me, without mentioning the pricing page is wrong.
So, no real progress, and I don’t remember non-AI support ever giving such misleading replies to what seems to be a basic question. Any here has any idea what might be going on? This is what the instance configuration looks like:
Okay, I think that console is showing “pure” VM ( storage + RAM + CPU) without associated costs like outbound traffic etc. This 34 USD is total pricing for you ALL resources within your project. I’ve checked pricing calculator and I’ve got also ~32 USD ( for mockup VM ).
On the right side of the Reports page, set the “Group by” filter to “SKU” (Stock Keeping Unit).
This report should show you the cost of the VM, the disk, the IP, and any networking charges all separately.
Update: Maybe there are some overcharges or some crazy logic behind calculations. Nevertheless, please check usage per SKU, and we will try to figure it out what’s going on. It’s also quite strange for me
First I tried the chat support where I eventually talked to three different people, first through a text chat, then a Google Meet call, then an email, all without progress. I also tried the email path since I have a feeling I’m getting AI generated responses in the earlier ticket. I’m still waiting for a reply to this second ticket (where I picked email).
One more unusual thing I noticed is that after I added a label to the VM, I can see the Compute Engine charges (specifically CPU and RAM) associated with the label are significantly lower than the total CE charges. This VM is the only one in the project so the numbers with and without the label filter should be the same. I’m not using SUDs, but it does sound like they are charging me for full dedicated cores. I mentioned this to the Support as well, they didn’t comment on it, but I have a feeling they did not understand what I am talking about (especially the first person who claimed e2-micro is not an instance type at all)
I had another call with Support, still no resolution, but I was told someone else will look into it. Unfortunately last time this happened I only got a generic email explaining that costs consist of CPU, RAM, etc., without any reference to my case.
One small win is this person at least acknowledged the situation looks like a bug since the actual costs are 3-4x different compared to the pricing page.
Hi @Michelle, did you hear back from the internal team by any chance?
In my Support ticket I got a response that the Support team failed to reach the technical team they wanted to reach out to. They closed the ticket due to this, but the issue/bug is still present.
