How People Are Unlocking $300 in Google AI Credits (Step-by-Step)

Google offers up to $300 in AI credits for new, eligible accounts, but most people never manage to actually use them.

They get stuck with things like:

• Credits not appearing
• Quota stuck at 0
• Billing enabled but still blocked
• AI Studio working while the API fails
• Confusing permissions and unexplained errors

The credits exist. The problem is the setup.

The official documentation is fragmented and assumes you already know how Google Cloud billing, quotas, and AI services fit together. If you don’t, it’s very easy to misconfigure something, give up, or accidentally bill the full account.

This playbook documents how to actually unlock and use the $300 credits, step by step — without guessing, backtracking, or burning hours debugging.

Official documentation (for reference)

This guide complements the official Google documentation, which you can find here:
👉 https://docs.cloud.google.com/free/docs/free-cloud-features

The docs explain what exists.
This guide explains how to make it actually work in practice.