[Urgent] Billing account downgraded from Tier 3 to Tier 1 unexpectedly — service paused

Gemini API
,
1

Hi all,

I’m hoping someone from the Google AI Studio team can help, or that another developer has seen this.

My billing account (ID: 0158D3-B321CB-22D848, ASKIE KIDS AI LIMITED) was on Paid Tier 3 and has been downgraded to Paid Tier 1 without any notification or action on my end. This has paused my production service because the Tier 1 cap (£187.74) is far below my actual monthly usage.

What I’m seeing:

  • Billing page shows: “Paid 1 · £187.74 Billing Account Tier Cap”

  • Spend page shows £1,126.46 used this month against my £3,000 project spend cap

  • Service is paused with the message: “You’ve reached the billing account monthly spend cap and service has been paused”

  • Last payment of £500.00 was successfully charged on Apr 21, 2026 (threshold charge)

  • Payment method is valid (Mastercard, expires 01/31)

  • No failed payments, no policy violations I’m aware of

My setup:

  • Production app (Askie — voice AI for kids, iOS/Android/web) using Gemini Live in production

  • Consistent monthly spend well above Tier 1 limits

  • Account in good standing, paid history intact

What I’ve tried:

  • Confirmed payment method is active

  • Verified no outstanding balance

  • Checked spend caps (project cap is £3,000, nowhere near hit)

What I need:

  1. Restoration to Tier 3

  2. An explanation of why the downgrade happened so I can prevent it recurring — this is a production outage for a paying customer base

  3. Ideally, an alert mechanism for future tier changes so I’m not finding out via paused service

Has anyone else experienced an unexplained tier downgrade recently? And can a Googler please flag this for the billing team?

Thanks in advance.

2

DM’ed you for more details

3

@Mustan_lokhand A lot of people are facing this same issue again today - please have a look - really really troubling for people including me - gen-lang-client-03440024..

4

It is resolve for me. Thanks

5

I am having the same issue. In my case, Tier 1 is not upgrading automatically.

6

Hello AI Studio Team,

I am experiencing a backend sync issue where my project has been downgraded to Tier 1.

Scan Gemini API Key

  • Project Name and Number: 4241621988..

  • Billing Account ID: 015B7E-4970AE-C95…

  • Current Status: The error banner “Project has been downgraded” only appears inside Google AI Studio.

  • GCP Console: The main Google Cloud Platform console is completely clean, healthy, and shows zero alerts.

  • Balance: My prepaid wallet has an active, positive credit balance .

Since everything is healthy on the Google Cloud side, this seems to be a quota synchronization bug on the AI Studio platform. Could an engineer please manually force-refresh or re-sync my billing account status to restore my correct Tier capacity?

Thank you!

7

Hello @Mustan_lokhand

I have the same issue. I’ve been downgraded from Tier 3 (thousands of dollars of spend, no failed payments) to Tier 1 multiple times at this point. Every time it causes service interruptions and I’ve found no way to prevent it. It always resolves itself within a few hours, when the system remembers we’re actually on Tier 3, not Tier 1.

It’s causing an outage on production with paying customers right now.
Any chance you can help out?
Thanks in advance.

8

Switching to pre-pay mode fixed the issue.

9

Happened to me today, on pre-pay mode. Sudden downgrade from tier 3 to tier 1 - prepaid balance of 1300€ in the billing account. Now lasting for 8h… earlier downgrades were only 1h… Production down - backup in place.
Need a fix please!

10

hi @Pol_Burkardt_Freire happy its fixed now

@Alexander_Bartscher can you share more details with me via DM ( Billing ID , project ID )

11

(post deleted by author)

12

Hello,

Same here, healthy tier 3 account no incodents, used it porduction…

Now tier 1 from tier 3.

It’s damaging paying customers… any one can help?

Thank you

13

Hello @Manuel_Fernandez_San ,

Has this issue resolved itself?
If not, can you please DM me with your project id/ number?

14

Hi @Mustan_lokhand can you help me to check with the same issue? I have been downgraded to T1 suddenly from T3. My project ID

Thank you so much for the help!

Summary

gen-lang-client-0672420814

15

happening to me almost everyday.

16

Hello i am having the same issues, this is causing production outage for me too. my billing accountis 012480-28588F-C639… Can you please look into it asap? CC @Pooja_Kapse @Mustan_lokhand

17

Hello, here the same problem: Downgraded from Tier 2 to Tier 1:

My Project ID 05682873.. and
Billing Account ID 01674D-924456-9C3B5..

Please help me out to fix it.

Kind regards,

Volker

18

Hi @mustan_lokhand it is happening again! Down to tier 1 for no apparent reasons.
ID:
012827-7EA5BE-6910..

Project:

563233564..

Last two days were fine - again no changes on our side.
Please have another look. It would be so important to have a long-term solution for this.
Thanks for your time!

19

Hello everyone,

Sincere apologies for this issue. Please use this form to report sudden tier downgrades, our team will look into it: Gemini API Tier Downgrade Report Form

20

It started happening to our account since yesterday (Aug 23rd) and the silent downgrade to Tier 1 has happened twice, this is causing production incidents to our paying customer base!

Some technical support on this would be greatly appreciated!

I have filled the downgrade report form