AI Studio shows Tier 1 limits while Billing shows Paid 2 + heavy 429 throttling

Google AI Studio
1

I’m seeing an inconsistency between Gemini API billing status and quota tier in Google AI Studio.

Current Situation

Billing page shows:

  • Billing account active

  • Status: Paid 2

  • Billing account linked correctly

  • Active production workload

But the Usage page still shows:

  • Tier 1

  • Tier 1 rate limits/quota behavior

  • Persistent 429 TooManyRequests

Environment:

  • Gemini API via AI Studio

  • Production OCR / document digitization pipeline

  • High-volume parallel processing workload

Symptoms

  • Heavy 429 spikes despite billing being enabled

  • Usage page explicitly says “Tier 1”

  • Billing page says “Paid 2”

  • API behavior still matches Tier 1 quotas

What I’ve Already Checked

  • Billing account is active and valid

  • API keys are using the billed project

  • Requests are being billed

  • Spend/usage graphs are updating correctly

  • Multiple Gemini models are in use

Questions

  1. Is “Paid 2” different from actual quota/rate-limit tier?

  2. Is there a propagation delay between billing activation and quota upgrade?

  3. Does Gemini API require a minimum amount of actual billed spend before quota tier changes?

  4. Can quota upgrades be manually reviewed for production workloads?

  5. Is this a known issue? I found similar reports from other users.

Additional Context

This workload is hitting production throttling due to 429s, so clarification or a quota review would really help.

Would appreciate guidance from the Google AI Studio / Gemini API team.