Set budgets and alerts

To create a budget:

1. Go to the API Console.
2. Open the console left side menu and click Billing  
3. If you have more than one billing account, click the billing account name.
4. On the left, click Budgets & alerts.
5. Click Create Budget.
6. Under Budget name enter a name for the budget.
7. Under Project or billing account, select the project or the billing account that you want to apply the budget to. If you apply a budget to a billing account, the budget reflects the spending across all projects associated with the billing account.
8. Under Budget amount you can choose to set the budget to a Specified amount or you can set it to match Last month’s spend. (Note that the monthly spend resets to $0 on the first day of every month.)
9. If you’re setting the budget to a specified amount, enter that amount. If you’re basing the budget on the previous month’s spend, the amount updates automatically.
10. If you want to accept the default alert settings, click Save. Otherwise, to set or remove alerts, you can proceed to the next task, Set, edit, or remove alerts.

When you create a budget, you can set alerts so that billing administrators will be sent email notifications when estimated charges exceed a specified percentage of the budget.

Note: Alerts are based on estimated charges; actual charges at the time the alert is received might be higher. Note also that if credits offset billable charges (preventing the total from reaching the specified percentage or amount of budget), then an alert won't be sent.

To set, edit, or remove budget alerts:

1. If necessary, Create a budget. Or, to add alerts to an existing budget:
   1. Go to the API Console.
   2. Open the console left side menu and click Billing  
   3. If you have more than one billing account, click the billing account name.
   4. On the left, click Budgets & alerts, then click the name of the budget that you want to add alerts to.
2. Under Percent of budget, enter the percent of the budget at which you want an alert triggered. The corresponding spend Amount is filled in automatically. (Alternatively, if you prefer, you can enter the Amount and let Google fill in the percentage for you.) Defaults are 50%, 90% and 100%, but you can modify those percentages and add or remove alert fields.
3. To add additional alerts, click the plus (+) under the alert list to add more fields.
4. To remove an alert, click the X next to it.
5. To save the current budget and alerts settings, click Save.

To view the status of all your budgets, or to edit or delete a budget:

1. Go to the API Console.
2. Open the console left side menu and click Billing  
3. If you have more than one billing account, click the billing account name.
4. On the left, click Budgets & alerts. Information displayed includes:
   • The Budget name
   • The Budget type, that is, whether the budget is a Specified amount or it's based on Last month's spend
   • What the budget Applies to, that is, whether it applies to a billing account or a project
   • Triggers alert at what percent of the budget, listing each percentage you created an alert for
   • Spend and budget amount, and a visual gauge of the how the spend is tracking against the budget
5. To delete a budget, select the box next to the budget name and then, near the top of the page, click Delete.
6. To edit a budget, click the budget name and then modify the fields that you want to change. For more information about what the fields mean, see the above section, Create a budget.