AI Studio Publishes Two Free Apps, If You Have Never Paid Google

Google AI Studio can publish up to two full-stack apps through the Cloud Starter Tier without a Google Cloud project or a billing account. The eligibility rules exclude anyone signed in with a Google Workspace account, anyone with an active or prior paid Cloud billing account, and accounts Google cannot get enough activity evidence for. Support cannot override the decision.¹

The two-app allowance is the headline. The eligibility list is what decides whether you get it, and it disqualifies far more people than it admits.²

The two deployment routes

Prices measured on 27 October 2026. Vendor plan terms, allowances and prices change without notice, so treat every figure on this page as a dated snapshot rather than a permanent fact. Where a number here differs from the vendor's own pricing page, the vendor's page is correct and the figure above is simply older than it.

Each deployment creates a Cloud Run service, so the "two apps" figure is two services in one region. There is no rolling allowance and no monthly refresh; unpublish one and you have a slot back.

Who is excluded, and why it is a strange list

Three conditions make an account ineligible: a Google Workspace sign-in, an active or prior paid Cloud billing account, and a lack of account activity evidence. The first two are the ones that catch people.

A Workspace account is excluded whether the subscription is paid, free, education or nonprofit. That removes the single most common Google identity for anyone working at a company, which means the free route is effectively a consumer-account feature.

A prior Cloud billing account is enough to disqualify, and prior is doing real work in that sentence. Someone who enabled billing once to test something and later cancelled does not qualify. That is a durable exclusion attached to a decision most developers made years ago without any reason to remember it.

The third condition is harder to plan around. Google says it may be ineligible where there is not enough evidence from account activity, and that the AI Studio support team cannot override the outcome. That is a discretionary gate with no published criteria and no appeal.

What the app itself gets, free or not

Build mode produces a complete full-stack project: a React front end, a Node server runtime, npm package installation, secrets stored in settings and readable only server-side, Firebase Firestore and Google sign-in provisioned automatically, and Workspace API connections with the OAuth configuration handled for you.

That stack is why the two-app limit is worth having. Publishing a working internal tool with a database and a login, without a Cloud project, is the step that most prototypes never reach. The limit is not the barrier that stops people; the eligibility list is.

The custom URL is included: a subdomain under ai.studio, globally unique and first come first served, released if you unpublish or delete the app. For a demo or a portfolio entry that is a presentable address rather than a Cloud Run hostname with a hash in it.

What happens at the third app

AI Studio asks you to either unpublish an existing application or upgrade to a paid account. There is no per-app purchase and no way to buy a third slot without converting the managed Starter Tier project into a standard Cloud project with billing attached.

That conversion is one-way and keeps your progress, which is the generous part. The moment you need higher quotas, more compute or any of the Cloud services outside the curated subset, the answer is a billing account and Cloud Run's pay-as-you-go pricing.

For someone prototyping two ideas, that is a genuinely free path from prompt to URL. For a third, the comparison with Vercel's Hobby plan becomes the useful one, since Hobby does not cap the number of deployments at all.

Frequently asked questions

Can I publish an app from AI Studio without a billing account?
Yes, up to two full-stack apps through the Starter Tier, if your account is eligible.

Does a Google Workspace account qualify?
No. Workspace sign-ins are excluded, including free, education and nonprofit subscriptions.

I had Cloud billing once and cancelled. Am I eligible?
No. A prior paid billing account is one of the listed disqualifiers.

Can support grant me access anyway?
No. Google states the support team cannot override Starter Tier eligibility.

How many regions can I deploy to?
One Cloud Run region across the whole project.

Do I get a custom domain?
You get a unique subdomain under ai.studio, assigned first come first served and released when the app is deleted.

The two-service limit, single-region rule, the three eligibility exclusions, the no-override rule, Cloud Run service creation, the custom ai.studio subdomain behaviour, the unpublish-or-upgrade prompt at the third app and the upgrade path to standard deployment verified in Google AI Studio's deployment documentation, read on 9 November 2026. The React and Node runtime, secrets storage, Firebase provisioning and Workspace integrations are from the Build mode documentation.

Sources

1. Google AI Studio: Deploying from Google AI Studio: ai.google.dev/gemini-api/docs/aistudio-deploying. Used for: Two services, one region, the three eligibility exclusions, the no-override rule, subdomain behaviour and the upgrade path.
2. Google AI Studio: Build apps in Google AI Studio: ai.google.dev/gemini-api/docs/aistudio-build-mode. Used for: Full-stack stack details: React default, Node runtime, secrets, Firebase and Workspace integrations.

All sources are the vendor's own plan or documentation pages, checked on 27 October 2026. Plan terms change without notice, so confirm current limits before you rely on them.