gcp-costlisted

# Google Cloud cost **No dollar figures live here.** Prices change, regions differ, and a stale number is worse than none — a reader who trusts it makes a wrong decision confidently. What does not change is the **billing model** (what you are charged *per*) and the **trap** (the design choice that multiplies it). Both are stable for years, and both are what an SDK reference never tells you. For current prices, use the pricing calculator or the billing console. For how the meter runs, read on. ## The one principle **GCP bills per operation far more often than per capacity.** The instinct from running servers — "it's provisioned, use it freely" — inverts here. A loop that reads one document at a time is not slow-but-fine; it is the bill. Most GCP cost surprises are a single N+1 pattern somewhere in a hot path. Corollary: cost is a *design* property, not an *ops* property. It is decided in the data model and the access pattern, and it is nearly unfixable by tuning afterwards. ## Per-service models and traps ### Datastores | Service | Billed per | The trap | | ----------- | ------------------------------------------------ | --------------------------------