Google Cloud API Gateway pricing,
the one that is not Apigee.
Google sells two API gateways and most pricing guides conflate them. Cloud API Gateway is the lightweight serverless one: 2 million calls free every month, then $3.00 per million, no fixed fees. Apigee is the enterprise platform with a $365/month floor. Below: the verified rate card, worked totals at three volumes, and exactly when each Google product makes sense.
Δ Quick verdict
For serverless backends on Google Cloud (Cloud Run, Cloud Functions, App Engine), API Gateway is one of the cheapest managed gateways anywhere: $0 up to 2M calls/month, ~$24 at 10M, ~$294 at 100M in call fees. Pick it over Apigee unless you need monetization, a developer portal or advanced analytics.
Per-call pricing, June 2026
| API calls per month (per billing account) | Cost per million calls | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 0 to 2M | $0.00 | Permanent free tier, resets monthly, shared across gateways in the account |
| 2M to 1B | $3.00 | Flat rate across the whole band, no commitment required |
| Above 1B | $1.50 | Rate halves at the billionth call each month |
Source: cloud.google.com/api-gateway/pricing, fetched 9 June 2026. Calls are metered by the Service Control API and appear as Service Control line items on the bill, not as a separate API Gateway SKU.
Data transfer (billed separately)
Inbound data is free. Outbound uses Google Cloud Premium Tier network pricing. The North America to North America rates below are representative; intercontinental and China-bound traffic costs more (up to $0.19/GiB).
| Monthly outbound volume | Price per GiB (NA to NA) |
|---|---|
| 0 to 10,240 GiB | $0.105 |
| 10,240 to 153,600 GiB | $0.08 |
| Above 153,600 GiB | $0.06 |
Monthly cost at three volumes (10 KB avg payload)
| Monthly calls | Call fees | Data transfer | API Gateway total | AWS HTTP API | Apigee PAYG |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1M | $0.00 (free tier) | $1.00 | ~$1 | $1.95 | $385 |
| 10M | $24.00 (8M x $3) | $10.01 | ~$34 | $19.54 | $565 |
| 100M | $294.00 (98M x $3) | $100.14 | ~$394 | $195.37 | $2,165+ |
Data transfer: 10 KB average response x volume at $0.105/GiB (NA to NA). AWS HTTP API totals from our AWS pricing sheet ($1.00/million + $0.09/GB transfer). Apigee pay-as-you-go totals = Standard API Proxy calls at $20/million + Base environment $365/month; the 100M row assumes traffic fits the Base environment’s 50 QPS cap. Free tiers applied where applicable.
API Gateway vs Apigee: Google’s two gateways explained
This is the single most common confusion in Google Cloud API pricing. Cloud API Gateway and Apigee are separate products with separate consoles, separate pricing pages and a roughly 7x to 100x cost difference depending on workload. API Gateway is an Envoy-based managed proxy you configure with an OpenAPI 2.0 spec, built for putting auth, quotas and routing in front of serverless backends. Apigee is a full API management suite aimed at organisations that treat APIs as products.
| Dimension | Cloud API Gateway | Apigee |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | Pure per-call: 2M free, then $3.00/M, $1.50/M above 1B | $20/M calls (Standard proxy) + environments from $365/mo/region; subscriptions quote-only |
| Minimum monthly cost | $0 | ~$385 (smallest PAYG production setup) |
| Designed for | Serverless backends: Cloud Run, Cloud Functions, App Engine | Enterprise API programs across any backend, including hybrid |
| Configuration | OpenAPI 2.0 spec upload; no policy programming | Programmable proxies, shared flows, policy library |
| Auth and quotas | API keys, JWT, IAM, per-key quotas | Everything in API Gateway plus OAuth flows, threat protection add-ons |
| Developer portal | None | Included; API catalogue, self-serve onboarding |
| Monetization | None | Rate plans, billing, revenue share built in |
| Analytics | Cloud Logging / Cloud Monitoring only | API Analytics dashboards ($20/M calls as PAYG add-on) |
Rule of thumb: if your APIs are an implementation detail of your own apps, use API Gateway and keep the bill near zero. If your APIs are a product with external consumers, partners or paying developers, the Apigee premium buys the portal, monetization and analytics you would otherwise build yourself. Full tier detail on the Apigee pricing sheet and the Apigee vs Kong comparison.
Against AWS API Gateway
■ Google wins on
- Free tier: 2M calls/month forever vs AWS’s 1M/month that expires after 12 months
- Simplicity: one rate card, no REST vs HTTP API product split to decode
- High volume rate: $1.50/million above 1B calls vs AWS HTTP API’s $0.80 floor is closer than the headline rates suggest
■ AWS wins on
- Mid-band rate: HTTP API at $1.00/million vs Google’s $3.00/million between 2M and 1B calls
- Data transfer: $0.09/GB vs Google’s $0.105/GiB at typical volumes
- Features: WebSockets, caching, usage plans and WAF integration that Google’s gateway lacks
In practice the choice follows your cloud: API Gateway only fronts Google Cloud backends well, and AWS API Gateway is AWS-native. Cost rarely justifies crossing clouds at these absolute numbers. Compare the full AWS rate card on the AWS pricing sheet or model your own workload in the calculator.