Prepay balance drained 3-4× beyond logged usage — R$519 charged retroactively on a single day (manual billing sync request)

Gemini API
,
1

Hi Google team,

I’m requesting a manual billing sync and an itemized review of my prepay charges. My project is being billed 3-4× above the list price of my logged usage, matching the pattern in threads 170826 and 170428 (June-July prepay billing issues).

Setup: Gemini API, prepay billing (Brazil, BRL). All usage comes from a single project (“fit-iamkt” — I can share the project number via DM). Other projects on the billing account show zero usage (verified per-project in AI Studio Spend). Our application logs every request client-side (timestamps, usageMetadata token counts, images generated), so we can reconcile request-by-request.

Model used: gemini-3-pro-image-preview only (image generation). Output images verified at 928×1152 px (1K tier / $0.134). No other Gemini models in use; no other consumers (legacy workflows are stopped; on Jul 10 we reconciled Google’s own log export vs ours: 51 vs 50 requests — matched).

Our complete logged usage, Jun 30 – Jul 14:

  • ~190 image-generation calls → ~190 final images (1K tier): 190 × $0.134 = $25.46
  • Input tokens: ~128k logged (say 0.5M with margin): ~$1.00
  • Thinking/output tokens: ~45k logged (say 1M with margin): ~$12.00
  • Absolute worst-case total: ~US$38 (~R$225)

What was billed (Cloud Billing Reports + AI Studio Spend, both agree):

  • R$714.27 (~US$123) month-to-date (Jul 1-14) — R$1.06K over 28 days
  • Of which R$519.81 was charged on a single day (Jul 13, PDT) — a window in which our logs show only ~26 requests (~US$5 at list price)
  • Notably, AI Studio first showed R$75.23 for Jul 13, and later restated the same day to R$519.81 — a retroactive restatement not backed by requests

Balance behavior (matches the known bug pattern):

  • Jul 10, 17:57 BRT — 429 Your prepayment credits are depleted
  • Jul 12 — topped up; balance R$121.00 → R$29.83 by Jul 13 23:41 (usage in period: ~15 calls)
  • Jul 14, ~00:00 BRT — topped up +R$200.00 → R$229.83; after 11 test calls balance R$220.52 at ~03:17 BRT
  • Jul 14, 03:17–08:21 BRT — zero requests from us (verified in server logs/DB)
  • Jul 14, 08:21 BRT — 429 depleted again: ~R$220 gone in ~5 idle hours

Requests:

  1. Please run a manual billing sync on the project;
  2. Provide an itemized/SKU-level breakdown with quantities of the R$714.27 (especially the R$519.81 on Jul 13) so we can reconcile against our request logs;
  3. Review/refund the charges that exceed metered usage at list price.

I can provide the project number, billing account ID, and our request-level logs (timestamps + token counts) via DM.

Thank you!