Explanation
Why the waste happens and who it affects.
Each of those resources keeps billing to the project's linked billing account.
Resource-level checks catch some of this, but they miss the bigger picture: a project can be abandoned as a whole while each of its resources looks individually plausible, especially when its creator has left. The unattended project recommender in Active Assist targets exactly this, flagging low-usage projects for cleanup and projects without active owners for reclaiming, together with an estimate of what removing them would save.
Billing model
The pricing dimensions that drive this cost.
Resource Manager has no charge of its own; the cost is the resources inside the project.
- Project resources
- Every billable resource in a project is charged to the linked Cloud Billing account until it is deleted or the project is shut down
- Project shutdown
- Shutting down a project stops all billing and resource usage and disconnects the Cloud Billing account
- Pending deletion period
- The project stays restorable for 30 days before it and its resources are permanently deleted, though some services may delete data sooner
How to detect
4 checks to find it in your estate.
- Review unattended project recommendations (recommender google.resourcemanager.projectUtilization.Recommender) in the console, gcloud or the Recommender API; the recommender only covers projects that belong to a Google Cloud organization
- CLEANUP_PROJECT recommendations flag projects with low usage over the last 30 days, based on API activity, service accounts, networking, user activity and service usage; RECLAIM_PROJECT flags projects that are in use but have no active owner
- Use the recommendation's cost impact, an estimate based on the project's trailing 30-day resource costs, to prioritize which projects to review first
- Do not act on a single insight: Google warns that one day's insight is not a reliable indicator, so confirm with recommendations that persist and with the project's owner or labels
How to fix
5 ways to remove the waste.
- Contact the listed owners, export any data or configuration that must be kept, and shut down projects confirmed as unused; the 30-day pending deletion window allows recovery if something was missed
- Note that Cloud Storage and Pub/Sub data might be deleted sooner than 30 days after shutdown, so back those up before shutting down if they matter
- Assign a new owner to projects flagged for reclaiming instead of deleting them, and review their resources for rightsizing
- Apply project liens to projects that must not be deleted, such as those holding active committed use discounts
- Prevent recurrence by requiring owner, cost center and expiry labels on new projects and by reviewing unattended project recommendations on a regular schedule
Documentation
Vendor references for pricing and configuration.