Request for clarification: Does Tier 1 have any free quota for low-volume personal use?

Gemini API
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Hello Google AI / Gemini API Support Team,

I would like to request some clarification regarding the current Gemini API Free Tier and Tier 1 billing policy.

My use case is very small-scale and personal. I am developing a personal blog, and I would like to use the Gemini API to provide an AI-powered Q&A feature for visitors. The expected API usage is very low, and this is not a high-volume or commercial production workload.

Initially, I intended to use the Gemini API under the Free Tier. However, in Google AI Studio, all of the API projects I tried showed a message similar to:

“API access for this project is restricted. Set up billing to continue.”

Because of this, I was unable to use the API even though I only wanted to make low-volume personal requests under the Free Tier.

I then tried setting up billing for the project, which moved it to Tier 1. After doing so, I noticed a message/interface that seemed to indicate that there may still be some free quota available. However, I could not find a clear explanation in the current documentation about whether Tier 1 users actually receive any free API quota.

Therefore, I would appreciate clarification on the following:

  1. Does a Tier 1 Gemini API project have any free quota or free requests/tokens?
  2. If so, what models are covered, and what are the exact RPM, TPM, and RPD limits?
  3. If Tier 1 does not have any free quota, does low-volume personal use necessarily require remaining on the Free Tier?
  4. Is the Free Tier currently available to all eligible users/projects, or can a project be restricted from Free Tier API access and require billing?
  5. In my case, is there a way to restore Free Tier access without enabling paid billing?

I am only looking for a small amount of API usage for a personal project. I would prefer to remain on the Free Tier if my use case is eligible.

I would greatly appreciate it if someone from the Google AI / Gemini API team could clarify the current policy and, if applicable, manually review my project’s restricted status.

Thank you for your help.

2

Hello @jiangalsoflow ,

1 & 2. No, Paid Tier 1 does not include a free model token quota for inference.
3. What tier is applicable for you majorly depends on the rate limits you need, free tier rate limits can be checked here
4. Yes most users and projects are eligible for free tier unless they are flagged by automated systems.
5. Would recommend you to try detaching the billing account and retry, but given that you got an error saying, “API access for this project is restricted.” when you were on free tier, it is unlikely that this particular project will be allowed API calls on free tier.

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thank you for your reply, it seems i shouldnt have linked my card​:sob: