Cloud Billing release notes

New filter and group-by option available in Cloud Billing Reports

In Billing Reports, Cloud Billing has added the Originating products filter and Group by to provide additional options that let you analyze and understand your costs. Originating products are Google Cloud products that cause usage in another product. For example, Gemini Enterprise is an originating product when it causes usage in the Gemini Enterprise app.

To help you track and analyze your AI spend, the Originating products dimension is used in the following ways:

• You can use the Originating products filter and group by option to configure your Cloud Billing report to track and analyze your Gemini Enterprise subscription and consumption costs.

• The Originating products dimension supports a new preset report for quick report configuration, called Gemini Enterprise costs by SKU.

• When you are viewing your costs in the Gemini Enterprise console, on the Gemini Enterprise > Usage & Spending page, the Originating products dimension supports the functionality of the costs displayed on the Gemini Enterprise Billing tab.

For more information, see the following resources:

• Learn how to view Gemini Enterprise costs in Cloud Billing reports
• Learn more about analyzing billing data and cost trends with Reports
• Learn how to view Gemini Enterprise costs in the Gemini Enterprise console

Spend cap budgets are now available for a limited set of services (Preview)

Available in Preview for eligible services, you can now configure a spend cap budget to automatically pause usage when your spend exceeds the budget amount you set.

Spend caps are a cost control mechanism. A spend cap is enforced when usage costs exceed your budget target amount. When enforced, any new request to the eligible services, within the specified project, are paused and no further usage costs are accrued until you manually lift the spend cap.

Spend caps typically use estimated costs to trigger the alerts and caps, enforcing a cap much faster than the actual costs are processed and appear on billing reports. Even though faster than reports, the enforcement of spend caps isn't instant and any cost overages are billed as normal.

For more information about spend cap budgets, see:

• How spend cap budgets work to help you control spend
• Configure a spend cap budget
• Lift an enforced spend cap
• Limitations of spend cap budgets

Early signals for AI workloads

For AI workloads (such as Gemini API and Vertex AI), you can now view early anomalies. Early anomalies use near real-time cost estimates to provide daily, service-level insights before finalized billing occurs. You can view these alerts on the By service (Early signals) tab on the Anomalies dashboard in the Google Cloud console. User-configured thresholds do not apply to early anomalies.

For more information, see View early anomalies for AI workloads.

Payments documents for invoiced billing accounts available on Payment status page

For Cloud Billing accounts that are paid by invoice, access to your payments documents, such as invoices and credit memos, is now available in the Cloud Billing console in the Payment status page.

The Payment status page replaces the Invoices page. Self-service (online) Cloud Billing accounts will continue to access Payments documents on the Invoices page.

The Payment status page provides a real-time and customizable view of your financial standing with your Cloud Billing account. The Payment status page is based on the Google payments Statement of account page, with your payments documents filtered by the Google payments account that is linked to the Cloud Billing account that you are viewing.

For more information about payments documents, see:

• Get a Cloud Billing document such as an invoice, statement, or receipt
• View your cost and payment history
• Google payments Statement of account

Resource-based CUD recommendations available for Compute Engine GPUs, Local SSD disks, and OS licenses

Resource-based committed use discount (CUD) recommendations are generally available (GA) for GPUs, Local SSD disks, and premium operating system (OS) licenses.

CUD recommendations provide insight into any additional commitments that you can purchase to optimize the costs of the resources that you run. You can use these recommendations and purchase commitments for resource usage that isn't covered by commitments and is being charged at list prices. Google Cloud analyzes your compute instance spending trends with and without a commitment and generates CUD recommendations on a monthly basis.

For more information about how CUD recommendations are generated, what resource types are supported, and how to use recommendations to purchase commitments, see Get recommendations for committed use discounts (CUDs).

CUD dashboard redesign available (preview)

The redesigned CUD dashboard is available in the Billing section of the Google Cloud console. It provides a consolidated view of all your resource-based and spend-based CUDs in a single place. The new design improves usability and scalability, helping you find information faster.

For more information, see View your commitments.

New filters and group-by options available in Cloud Billing Reports

Cloud Billing has added two filters to the Billing Reports page to help you analyze and understand your costs:

• Products: Google Cloud Products consist of a group of SKUs (potentially from more than one Google Cloud Service) that work together and are sold as a single service, sometimes referred to as a logical product family or a subscription service. Examples include Gemini Enterprise and Firebase App Hosting.

• Originating services: An Originating service is a Google Cloud service that causes usage in another service. For example, Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) can cause usage in Compute Engine. In this use case, when you are viewing the Compute Engine usage and costs, GKE is an originating service when it causes usage in Compute Engine.

You can also Group by the new filters, to summarize your costs by the dimension you select.

• Product: When you group by Product, the Report shows your costs and savings summarized by Product.
• Originating service > Service: When you group by Originating service > Service, the Report shows your costs and savings summarized by Originating service. In the report table, you can expand each row for an Originating service to see your costs summarized by each Service that is associated with the Originating service.

Learn more about analyzing billing data and cost trends with Reports.

Learn how to view Gemini Enterprise costs in Cloud Billing reports.

Multi-project access to Cloud Billing cost views available in Preview

In Cloud Billing accounts, multi-project access to usage costs lets project owners, solution owners, developers, and other non-billing admins see cost data for all of their authorized projects in a single view in the Cloud Billing console.

The multi-project view uses a combination of Cloud Billing account permissions and Google Cloud project permissions that let Cloud Billing administrators and organization administrators jointly control access to project-level cost data.

Using project-scoped Cloud Billing account permissions, Cloud Billing administrators can control which solution owners can view aggregated cost data in the Cloud Billing console.

• Learn more about cost management for project owners.
• Learn how to set up multi-project access to costs views.

FOCUS billing data export to BigQuery available in Preview

Cloud Billing data export to BigQuery now offers a FOCUS billing data export available in Preview. The FinOps Open Cost and Usage Specification (FOCUS) is an open specification that defines clear requirements for technology billing data generators to produce consistent cost and usage datasets. The Google Cloud billing data export using the FOCUS specifications includes FOCUS columns up to FOCUS version 1.2.

For more information about the FOCUS billing data export to BigQuery, refer to the following documentation:

• Set up FOCUS Cloud Billing data export to BigQuery
• Structure of the FOCUS data export
• FOCUS conformance report
• Query examples for FOCUS use cases

CUD Analysis is Generally Available

CUD Analysis has reached general availability (GA). This tool supports the new spend-based CUD model and provides a unified interface for customers to examine both spend-based and resource-based CUDs. It offers a consolidated view of Compute resources including the benefits of both resource-based and spend-based CUDs.

You can use this tool to do the following:

• Understand savings: Understand the financial impact of your commitments.
• Track key metrics: Track how effectively your commitments are being used.
• Download data: Download a CSV file of your daily usage for offline analysis and reporting.

For more information, see Analyze the effectiveness of your CUDs.

The AI Cost Summary Agent is now available in Preview

You can now use the AI Cost Summary Agent to analyze your AI costs and gain critical insights into your AI-related spend. The agent analyzes spending related to Gemini usage, including Gemini API and Vertex AI.

This feature is available as a widget on the Billing Overview page for your Cloud Billing account.

For more information, see Analyze your AI spend with the AI Cost Summary Agent.

GKE workload recommenders now available in the FinOps hub

You can now view recommendations for right-sizing overprovisioned workloads and optimizing underprovisioned workloads for Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) clusters directly in the FinOps hub.

For more information, see Optimize workload resource utilization.

Scenario modeling for CUD recommendations is generally available

Scenario modeling for committed use discount (CUD) recommendations is now generally available (GA). You can simulate scenarios for both spend-based and resource-based CUDs, and customize recommendations to purchase a commitment that maximizes your savings.

For more information, see Simulate scenarios for CUDs savings.

Billing account permissions now streamline access to Google payments profiles and payments accounts

We've launched a billing IAM permissions update that simplifies and streamlines Cloud Billing account access to the associated Google payments profiles and accounts, for users who have the billing.accounts.updatePaymentInfo permission on their Cloud Billing account.

Prior to this update: While working in the Cloud Billing console, to access and edit the associated Google payments profile and account information, all Cloud Billing account users needed two sets of permissions:

• Identity and Access Management (IAM) permissions on the Cloud Billing account to access and manage the billing account.
• Edit or Admin access permissions on the associated Google payments profile in order to add and edit payment methods, make a manual payment, and update payments profile info such as the business name, address, tax info, and payments account settings.

After this permissions update: Cloud Billing account users with the billing.accounts.updatePaymentInfo permission on the billing account can access and edit Google payments profile and account information directly from the Cloud Billing console, without needing additional permissions on the payments profile itself. This includes users with the Billing Account Administrator role (roles/billing.admin) and those granted this permission via a custom role.

Note that this permissions update applies only to Cloud Billing accounts associated with an Organization (or Business) Google payments profile type. You can verify your account type on the Payment settings page in the Cloud Billing console.

With the billing.accounts.updatePaymentInfo permission on the billing account, users can do the following:

• View payments history and documents related to the associated Google payments profile.
• Add and edit payment methods on a self-serve (online) billing account.
• Make a manual payment to a self-serve (online) billing account.
• Update payments profile info such as the business name, address, tax info, and payments account settings.

Billing account users with the billing.accounts.updatePaymentInfo permission won't have the Manage users or Admin with all permissions level of access on the Google payments profile. To fully manage a payments profile and gain Manage users and Admin permissions, billing account users still require additional Google payments user permissions granted on the associated payments profile.

CUD recommendations support more machine types

Resource-based CUD recommendations for cores and RAM now support additional machine series. For a complete list, see Resource-based CUDs supported by recommendations.

You can access these recommendations using the FinOps hub user interface, programmatically using the Recommender API, or when you export recommendations to BigQuery.

View granular cost data from Pub/Sub snapshot, subscription, and topic usage in Cloud Billing exports to BigQuery

You can now view granular Pub/Sub cost data in the Google Cloud Billing detailed export. Use the resource.name or resource.global_name field in the export to view and filter your detailed snapshot, subscription, and topic usage.

Review the schema of the Detailed cost data export.

Anomaly Detection is generally available

View and manage cost spikes that deviate from your typical spend patterns using the Anomalies dashboard, which is generally available. Each anomaly includes a detailed root cause analysis that identifies the top services, regions, and SKUs that contributed to the spike.

With this launch, we've added the following features to Anomaly Detection:

• Auto-generated anomaly thresholds that update daily based on your usage patterns.
• Deviation percentage as a new threshold for you to configure for your anomalies.
• Email alerts automatically set up for Billing administrators to help you proactively manage your costs.

Learn more about using Anomaly detection to manage costs.

Personalized saved reports are available in cost Reports.

For customers who have enabled Gemini Cloud Assist in Cloud Billing, your custom saved reports that you open frequently now appear in the reports carousel, for quick access. Previously, the reports carousel only provided access to Google-created preset reports.

For more information, see the following topics in the Reports dcoumentation:

• Save and share report views
• Use preset reports for quick configuration

Spend-based committed use discount (CUD) metadata export to BigQuery (public preview)

You can now access spend-based CUD metadata programmatically through a BigQuery export. This data provides a comprehensive, daily snapshot of spend-based CUDs, which you can join with other billing data exports for improved CUD reporting and management.

Learn more about the CUD metadata export.

Tags data for regional Secret Manager secret usage is available in both the Standard usage cost export and the Detailed usage cost export.

Tags for Global secrets have been available since August 8, 2024. With this update, you can now tag Regional secrets as well.

To learn more about Tags, see Tags overview. To learn about using Tags in your cost data exported to BigQuery, see about tags and query examples with tags.

New fields added to Cloud Billing data exports to BigQuery

To prepare for expanding the spend-based committed use discounts (CUD)s program, we added new data fields to the schema for Cloud Billing standard and detailed data exports to BigQuery. These new fields add more information about the prices charged for your Google Cloud usage and consumption models.

To learn more, see Billing data and SKU updates for spend-based CUDs.

New, enhanced forecasting model for increased accuracy in cost reports

Cloud Billing forecasts now better account for seasonality trends, data irregularities, and missing data, using an enhanced forecasting model that leverages AI to factor in various scenarios, such as the following:

• Intelligent handling of transient effects caused by known business events - for example, a new workload migration causing a usage spike.
• Deeper understanding of seasonality - for example, various recurring patterns, such as daily, weekly and monthly cycles in your cloud spend; or for retailers, increases in usage during holiday seasons.
• Adapting to trends to remain relevant in changing environments - for example, new AI spend.

These enhancements, powered by our new machine learning engine, translate to increased forecasting accuracy. By capturing complex trends, multiple seasonalities, and handling data anomalies more intelligently, you'll see a marked improvement in the precision of your cost forecasts.

For more information about the forecasted costs in reports, see View you forecasted costs.

Find and eliminate waste using FinOps hub 2.0 with Gemini Cloud Assist (preview)

FinOps hub 2.0 adds a new dashboard, Utilization insights, designed to help you quickly identify and reduce cloud waste to get the most value from Google Cloud. You can do the following with FinOps hub's Utilization insights dashboard:

• Assess estimated costs from underutilized resources (for example, idle, overprovisioned, underprovisioned and suboptimal configurations).
• Use the visual Waste map to find the top waste drivers by projects and waste category, helping you focus your optimization efforts.
• Leverage data-driven recommendations to optimize key services (Compute Engine, Kubernetes Engine (GKE), Cloud SQL, and Cloud Run) and App Hub applications.

Use Gemini Cloud Assist in FinOps hub to save time and simplify collaboration. If you have enabled Gemini Cloud Assist in Billing, Gemini generates summaries of top wasted usage insights and drafts email reports of utilization insights that you can share with your engineering teams for quicker remediation.

For more information about the FinOps hub Utilization insights dashboard, see:

• Review utilization and wasted usage insights

For more information about Gemini Cloud Assist features in FinOps hub, see:

• Gemini Cloud Assist in Cloud Billing
• Set up Gemini Cloud Assist in Cloud Billing

App Hub applications are now integrated with billing reports and the FinOps hub, to let you analyze costs by application. This integration provides detailed cost analysis for your specific applications, so FinOps and DevOps can see the cost of their applications and get recommendations on how to optimize their cloud efficiency.

• In cost Reports, you can configure your report to Group by Application, or filter on Applications.
• In the Cost table report, you can filter on Applications.
• In the Cost breakdown report, you can filter on Applications.
• In the FinOps hub Utilization insights dashboard, you can view insights by App Hub Application, to see the estimated costs of potentially wasted usage, and find recommendations to reduce waste and optimize your costs.

Cloud Billing supports Dark theme in the Google Cloud console (in preview)

Dark theme is now available in the Billing section of the Google Cloud console (preview). To enable the Dark theme, in the Google Cloud console, click Settings > Preferences > Appearance. Choose Dark theme and click Save.

Improved consistency in resource-based committed use discount (CUD) string names across experiences.

We have improved consistency by standardizing CUD string names across the various experiences. This update helps provide a seamless experience in resource-based CUD purchase flows, recommendations, analysis, and the FinOps hub.

Google Cloud Marketplace now uses the agency model for marketplace services for UK, FR, and DE customers.

As part of this change, customers will receive separate invoices for Google Cloud and third-party vendor transactions in the Cloud Marketplace.

For more information, see Split invoicing for agency model transactions and Marketplace Agency Account Migration FAQ.

Tags data for BigTable instances is available in both the Standard usage cost export and the Detailed usage cost export.

To learn more about Tags, see Tags overview. To learn about using Tags in your cost data exported to BigQuery, see more about tags and query examples with tags.

Simulate scenarios in FinOps hub to maximize your savings from resource-based CUDs

In the FinOps hub, we added support for resource-based CUD recommendations as a starting point to simulate various usage scenarios, and customize the recommendation to purchase a CUD that maximizes your savings.

Learn about simulating scenarios for resource-based CUDs.

View and manage unexpected costs with Anomaly Detection (in preview)

You can now view and manage cost spikes that deviate from your historical spend patterns using the Anomalies dashboard (preview). Each anomaly comes with a detailed root cause analysis that identifies the top services, regions, and SKUs that contributed to the spike.