I’m encountering a billing inconsistency between Google Cloud Platform and Google AI Studio.
Gemini API returns:
429 “Your prepayment credits are depleted”
However:
The project is linked to a Cloud billing account
The billing account is active and has available funds in Google Cloud Console
In AI Studio:
The same Cloud Prepay account is visible
But its balance is shown as $0.00
So currently:
Cloud Billing → shows available funds
AI Studio → shows zero credits
Gemini API → fails with 429
Additional details:
In AI Studio, the billing account is shown as “Tier 1 · Prepay”
In Google Cloud Billing, the account is active and funded
The issue persists for more than 24 hours
I also tried the suggested workaround:
created a new project in Google Cloud Console
enabled the Gemini / Generative Language API
opened/imported that project in AI Studio
created a new API key
This did not help.
I still get:
429 “Your prepayment credits are depleted”
This looks like a synchronization issue between Cloud Billing and AI Studio.
I also found reports from other users who already tried new projects, new API keys, and even manual prepayment, but the issue still persisted. So this does not appear to be a simple project/key configuration problem.
I believe it’s because Google Ai Studio has its own billing format. After the new terms and conditions, the 250/300 credits (or rather, Google Cloud) cannot be used on generative API anymore.
Same billing mismatch issue, slightly different situation.
Gemini API returns:
429 “Your prepayment credits are depleted”
My setup:
Project: “Joshua limitless”
Tier 2 (despite spending well over Tier 3 thresholds)
Billing plan: Postpay (NOT Prepay)
Active credit: -COP 297,598 (Google owes me)
Last manual payment: April 9, COP 250,000
Made another manual payment today — went into Postpay bucket,
API still returns 429
Key inconsistencies:
I am on Postpay, but API says “prepayment credits depleted” —
there is no Prepay section visible in my billing dashboard
My billing account tier cap shows COP 7,336,550 (~$1,800 USD)
which should qualify me for Tier 3, but I’m shown as Tier 2
Billing page says “Balance is for both Gemini API service and
Cloud services” — but the API disagrees
No “Buy prepay credits” option is visible anywhere in my
billing interface
Under Projects, status shows “No available credits” despite
the Postpay credit being available
What I’ve tried:
Generated new API key (same project) — same error
Raised spend cap to COP 200,000 — no effect
Added rate limit of COP 100,000 — no effect
Manual payment today — credit went to Postpay, API still blocked
Waited over 4 hours — no change
I suspect the March 23 billing changes created a split charging
cycle on my account that requires Prepay credits for Gemini API,
but my account was never given the option to purchase Prepay
credits — only Postpay payments are available.
My billing currency is COP (Colombian Pesos). Some of the tier cap
numbers suggest the system may be confusing COP with USD.
Can someone from Google investigate? This has been blocking API
access for over 12 hours.
I am , the issue is not billing page being inaccessible, it’s that we are not able to use our gcp credits, in ai studio which used to work that way last month
Having the exact same issue! We have $1200 of GCP credits confirmed still available in our Google Cloud Billing account. These credits were working fine for months with our API calls, no issues. Starting last week, this stopped working and we started getting 429 resource depleted errors.
We contacted Google Support, the agent saw that indeed the Google Cloud Billing Account Does Have a lot of credits remaining, and the API keys are attached to said billing account, so it should be working, but it isn’t. They said they’re escalating the case and will return to me in 24 hours but it’s already been 2 days..
Drop a quick reply with the exact details from your screenshots:
Project ID:gen-lang-client-03384974..
Billing Account ID:01748B-4255FD-0AB2..
Mention that you manually topped up $20, Cloud Billing shows it’s linked, but the API continues to throw 429 errors.
The forum moderators are actively gathering these specific project IDs and passing them to the engineering team to manually sync the balances and restore API access.
Same problem here. I even topped up prepay with Rs.1000 but still the api returns 429 “”{reason": “Gemini request failed status=429 retry-after-ms=0: {\n \“error\”: {\n \“code\”: 429,\n \“message\”: \“Your prepayment credits are depleted. Please go to AI Studio at https://ai.studio/projects to manage your project and billing. Learn more at https://ai.google.dev/gemini-api/docs/billing#prepay. \”,\n \“status\”: \“RESOURCE_EXHAUSTED\”\n }\n}\n” }" . What’s the fix ??
I do see this. Till a few hours ago the gemini API was using GCP for startup credits and now it is not and asking to buy credits in AI studio. We have been using this for the past 6 months.
