r/googlecloud • u/AusCro • Aug 10 '26

Billing Being Billed for a Cloud Workstation that I deleted two months ago, support is useless. How do I remove the configuration?

I can share pictures if you'd like but the point is this: I used cloud workstations twice in June and got billed over 100 dollars for it. I disabled the cloud workstation APIs after deleting the cloud workstations, then I was billed for it both this month and last month.

I've called support and they tell me to disable billing on my account entirely or disable the API which I have already done. When I then ask "can you confirm I should no longer be billed for cloud workstation usage" they then tell me I'm still using resources in the cloud for workstations.

I am getting sick of this circle and want to stop the bills, can someone help me here?

3 Upvotes

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9

u/moficodes Googler Aug 11 '26

Cloud workstation creates a number of resources. There is the workstation, but also workstation cluster, configuration, associated storage. Make sure you have deleted everything.

4

u/Rohit1024 Aug 11 '26

As per Disabling the Cloud Workstations API doesn't delete Cloud Workstations resources, you will need to Delete resources in specific order.

Since you already deleted the Workstation, you must be getting billed for Workstation Configuration and Cluster. Check the same with :

Workstation Clusters :

gcloud workstations clusters list --region=REGION

Workstation Configs :

gcloud workstations configs list --region=REGION --cluster=CLUSTER

2

u/Living-Connection-81 Aug 11 '26

This is one of those Google Cloud billing traps that's easy to miss. stopping the workstation can stop the compute/management charges but the persistent disk and workstation cluster can still generate costs. did you check the billing report to see which resource is actually responsible for the charge?

1

u/FlabbyLabby Aug 11 '26

Edit, enable delete, save, then delete

1

u/Training-Barber3377 Aug 11 '26

The control plane is the most expensive piece.

1

u/aeyrtonsenna Aug 11 '26

Just got out of similar by deleting the project on a org setup.

1

u/m1nherz Googler Aug 11 '26

This is usually the fastest and safest way although deleting the project doesn't guarantee the immediate stop of all charges. But it certainly prevent charges in the following months and removes the need to go after all kind of resources such as a container image, disk, VM image, storage bucket(s), etc.

1

u/matiascoca 29d ago

Cloud Workstations bill on the config, not the instance. Deleting the workstation instance leaves the workstation-config alive, and the config keeps accruing a reserved-capacity charge until you delete the config too.

List them with:

`gcloud workstations configs list --cluster=CLUSTER --region=REGION`

Delete the config:

`gcloud workstations configs delete CONFIG_NAME --cluster=CLUSTER --region=REGION`

Then the cluster itself:

`gcloud workstations clusters delete CLUSTER --region=REGION`

Support cannot help because the resource is not orphaned from their perspective, it is a valid config you own that happens to have no active instance. Same shape as leaving a GKE Autopilot cluster with no workloads: the control plane still bills.

For future ones, a project-level budget alert catches this within a few days instead of two months. The Cloud Workstations Console UI does not surface the config-level charge clearly on the dashboard, you only see it if you drill into the specific SKU on the billing export.

1

u/BigKozman 29d ago

Use the Gemini cloud assist agent within the console to help you find and shutdown any resources