How much does Google Cloud Search / Vertex AI Search cost?
Usage price from
$1.50/queries
- Free plan
- Yes
- Usage price
- $1.50/queries
- Enterprise
- Contact sales
Read from cloud.google.com/generative-ai-app-builder/prici on Oct 29, 2026. Price changed? Tell usSee the line each price came from
In your favor
- Free plan. 10,000 queries per account per month at no cost on General pricing (excludes Advanced Generative Answers); 10 GiB index storage free per month
Watch out for
- Extra usage is billed. Usage above subscribed QPM is billed as overage at the General Standard Edition rate
- Their pages disagree: Configurable query unit price. "Query Unit | $0.008219178 / 1 hour" vs "Core Subscription - Query Unit | 1500 Query Per Minute | * $6.00 / QPM"
How you buy and get started
Self-serve + salesButtons on their site: Start free, Contact sales, Try Gemini platform
- Sign up
- Start free via Google Cloud console "Start free"
- Setup
- Not stated
- When sales steps in
- Configurable pricing suggested for workloads above 15M queries per month "Workloads with more than 15M queries per month"
What Google Cloud Search / Vertex AI Search does
Agent Search lets developers build search engines over website, unstructured and structured data and generate grounded answers, billed per query and per GB indexed or by monthly capacity subscription. It sits inside Google Cloud's Gemini platform for building agents.
- Good for
- Developers and enterprises building search and grounded generative answer applications on Google Cloud, including high-volume workloads.
- Channels
- API, Console
- Main product
- Agent Search
- Also includes
- Search Standard Edition (unstructured and structured search), Search Enterprise Edition (adds website search and core generative answers), Advanced Generative Answers add-on, Grounded Generation API, Check Grounding API, Ranking API
- Public API
- Yes
- MCP server
- Not stated
- Cited AI answers
Generates answers, citations, and follow-ups. Requires the Semantic add-on.
- Connectors to work appsNot stated
- Permission-aware resultsNot stated
- Live web search
Search Enterprise Edition – Unstructured Search + Structured Search + Website Search capabilities
- Agents and workflows
Gemini platform enables technical teams to build agents that can transform enterprise applications and workflo
- Search API access
A request or query is defined as any API call to Enterprise Search, whether direct with API usage or indirect
- SSO and SOC 2Not stated
- No training on your dataNot stated
The same 8 checks appear on every tool in AI search engines. Each tick quotes the vendor's own site.
Security and your data
| Question | Their answer | Where it says so |
|---|---|---|
| Trains AI on your data? | Not stated | |
| HIPAA (signs a BAA) | Not stated | |
| SOC 2 | Not stated | |
| GDPR | GDPR compliance commitment stated | "Google Cloud has a long-standing commitment to [GDPR compliance](https://cloud.google.com/privacy/gdpr)"privacy |
| CCPA | Not stated | |
| PCI | Not stated | |
| ISO 27001 | Not stated | |
| Single sign-on | Not stated | |
| Trust center | Not stated |
Security answers are the vendor's own claims, quoted. We don't audit them.
Every plan
| Plan | Monthly | Billed yearly | Included | Over the allowance | Where it says so |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| General: Search Standard Edition/ 1,000 query | $1.50per queries | – | 10000 queries | – | "$1.50 / 1,000 query" |
| General: Search Enterprise Edition/ 1,000 query | $4per queries | – | 10000 queries | – | "$4.00 / 1,000 query" |
| Advanced Generative Answers (AI Mode) add-on/ 1,000 user input query | $4per minute | – | – | – | "+$4.00 / 1,000 user input query" |
| Configurable: Storage Unit subscription/ 1 hour | $0per minute | – | – | – | "$0.001369863 / 1 hour" |
| Index Storage/ 1 gibibyte hour | $0.01per gib | – | 10 GiB | – | "$0.006849315 / 1 gibibyte hour" |
| Healthcare Search/ 1,000 count | $20per minute | – | – | – | "$20.00 / 1,000 count" |
| Media Search API Request/ 1,000 count | $2per minute | – | – | – | "$2.00 / 1,000 count" |
| Grounded Generation (own data)/ 1,000 count | $2.50per minute | – | – | – | "$2.50 / 1,000 count" |
| Ranking API/ 1,000 count | $1per minute | – | – | – | "$1.00 / 1,000 count" |
Their pages disagree: Configurable query unit price"Query Unit | $0.008219178 / 1 hour" vs "Core Subscription - Query Unit | 1500 Query Per Minute | * $6.00 / QPM x Month subscriptio"
Free plan: 10,000 queries per account per month at no cost on General pricing (excludes Advanced Generative Answers); 10 GiB index storage free per month
Fine print
- Billing increment
- Per query or per 1,000 count; storage billed per gibibyte hour "Billing metered per individual Request or Query Input"
- Billed beyond usage
- Usage above subscribed QPM is billed as overage at the General Standard Edition rate "By default, overage count are billed at the General Pricing model's Standard Edition rate ($1.50 / 1,000 queries)."
- Contract
- Configurable pricing has a minimum monthly commitment "Minimum monthly commitment: 1000 queries per minute (QPM) and 50 GB of storage."
- Refunds
- Not stated
- Auto renew
- Not stated
- Price change notice
- Not stated
"Not stated" means we read their pricing page and terms and they don't say.
About the company
- Ships updates
- 77 in the last 12 months Last on Jun 28, 2027, from their changelog
- Customers
- "Nearly 90% of generative AI unicorns are Google Cloud customers" their claim
Google Cloud Search / Vertex AI Search alternatives
Notion$10 /moFree plan · checked Oct 29, 2026
Slab$6.67 /moFree plan · checked Oct 29, 2026
Slack AI Search$7.25 /moFree plan · checked Oct 29, 2026
Slite$10 /mochecked Oct 29, 2026
Dashworks$10 /mochecked Oct 29, 2026
Onyx$20 /mochecked Oct 29, 2026
SearchBlox SearchAI$2,000 /mochecked Oct 29, 2026
AlgoliaQuoteFree plan · checked Oct 29, 2026Reviews elsewhere
We link to reviews instead of copying ratings: those sites don't allow reuse, and we don't test products ourselves.
Questions
Is Google Cloud Search / Vertex AI Search free?
Yes. 10,000 queries per account per month at no cost on General pricing (excludes Advanced Generative Answers); 10 GiB index storage free per month