Yes, Google Colab has a permanent free tier alongside its paid plans. FreeTier.co estimates the free tier at about $2.00/mo.
About
Google Colab is a browser-based notebook environment for writing and executing Python code on Google’s cloud infrastructure. It supports interactive code cells, rich text, Markdown, HTML, LaTeX, file sharing through Google Drive, and access to GPUs and TPUs from a notebook interface.
The free offering is perpetual and includes access to Colab notebooks with free GPU usage, but the pricing page also shows paid plans for higher compute limits, faster GPUs, more memory, and background execution. The service is used for data science, machine learning, and general Python experimentation, with compute resources and notebook runtime behavior varying by plan.
- Browser-based Python notebook execution
- Free GPU access
- Google Drive notebook storage
- Interactive code and rich text cells
- Data science and machine learning workflows
- TPU and accelerated hardware support
Free Tier Value
This free tier is perpetual and usable, but it is clearly capped by compute restrictions and lacks the paid upgrades like faster GPUs, expanded Gemini quota, and more memory. Compared with the cheapest paid option at $9.99/month, the free offering is worth about $2/month - roughly 20% of Pro’s value - because it gives a basic always-free notebook experience without the paid performance and quota boosts.
What's included in the free tier
Verified
- Always free of charge to use.
- No explicit free-tier quota or usage limit is listed.
See Google Colab pricing for current limits.
Paid plans
Pay As You Go
- compute units
- 100 per purchase
- price
- $9.99 per 100 compute units
- No subscription required
- Only pay for what you use
- Faster GPUs
- Standard Gemini quota
Pro
- compute units
- 100 per month
- compute unit expiry
- 90 days
- 100 compute units per month
- Faster GPUs
- Expanded Gemini quota
- More memory
Pro+
- compute units
- 600 per month total
- compute unit expiry
- 90 days
- background execution
- up to 24 hours with compute units
- All Pro benefits
- Additional 500 compute units per month
- Faster GPUs
- Maximum Gemini quota
- Background execution
Enterprise
- pricing
- usage-based
- contact
- bulk pricing available
- Integrated with Google Cloud services
- Enterprise notebook storage
- Generative AI powered code completion and generation
Pricing extracted from Google Colab's pricing page. Always verify current pricing before committing.
Common questions
Is Google Colab free forever?
Yes. Google Colab has a permanent free tier alongside its paid plans, though the allowance typically resets each month.
What happens when you exceed Google Colab's free tier?
You move to a paid plan. Google Colab's cheapest paid plan is Pay As You Go at $9.99 / month.
What is Google Colab's free tier worth?
Google Colab's free tier is worth about $2.00 per month. That maps to an FTV score of 37/100. The FTV score is explained at freetier.co/ftv.
