I've created 2 billing statements and paid Google Cloud 3 times, but I still can't use AI Studio: 429 Your prepayment credits are depleted. Please go to AI Studio at https://ai.studio/projects to manage your project and billing

Gemini API
1

I’ve created 2 billing statements and paid Google Cloud 3 times, but I still can’t use AI Studio: 429 Your prepayment credits are depleted. Please go to AI Studio at https://ai.studio/projects to manage your project and billing.

I have two billing accounts in my Google account, but AI Studio doesn’t recognize them, even though I’ve made three payments (10$ each). AI Studio keeps showing the error “No prepayment method set up for this billing account
Prepay is required for this billing account.” It asks me to SET UP PREPAY. When I click on it, I’m redirected to Google Cloud to create a billing account and deposit another 10$, a continuous loop, but I still end up paying and can’t use the service.

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2

I encountered the same issue, have you resolved it?

3

It might be an AI Studio error; I’ve had multiple accounts affected, and no one is resolving the issue. They generally don’t care about us. I’ve switched to GPT chat to use.

4

Damn, I thought I made a mistake somewhere, wasted a whole afternoon on it.

5

Did you get any solution?

6

Hi @Akash_MP - It seems you are paying your in your postpay payment account, rather than the prepay gemini api payment account. I am having our team look into status of the prepay account creation for you. Will follow up shortly!

7

Hi @Akash_MP ,

Would it be possible to try again setting up a prepay account? When doing this, use the flow to create a prepay account via AI Studio and not Cloud Console.

8

I’m facing a very similar issue. In our global account, we have created so far 15 Billing accounts (Postpaid, using a Bank account which has been validated) since early 2026, each of these Billing with 5 projects (the limit).
The last 2 Billing accounts created are also associated with the Bank account as a Payment method, but all the projects linked to these Billing accounts are:

  • Denied the use of Gemini AI API with a 429 error,
  • Reported in AI Studio with either “Setup prepay”, “Prepay required”, but also “Tier 1 - Postpay” at the same time, or having “Tier 1 Prepay” and “Buy credits, No credits”.
    Linking the project to one of our older Billing account for a test, and it works, which seems to imply the issue is at the Billing account level, not the Project level.
    But because we are limited to 5 projects per Billing account, moving project is not an option.
    Does anyone find a way out of this nightmare ?