Many of the Google cloud services require your project to be linked to a billing account before it can be activated. This is because even the free services have a limit, and if you exceed that free tier limit, you get billed.
A common example of this is Google maps.
To have a fully interactive google map on your website requires using the API. Google maps give you $200 credit per month for your maps usage, which is more than enough for most websites, but they they still want your billing details in case you exceed this.
The other problem with this is that the $200 quota is per billing account, not per site or project.
So if I setup google maps for every client/site under my own Google billing account, that quota is spread across all sites, and I will get billed if those combined sites cause me to go over quota, then who do I charge?
As a result I require that each client sets up their own billing account, so I can assign their project to their own billing account, thus keeping it separate from mine.
The only way to avoid this is to
- Use the embed option instead, which cannot be customised or configured and runs inside an IFRAME, so can also cause display/performance issues.
- Use a static image that links to google maps instead
If you do not want to go for either of those alternatives, below are all the instructions you will need.
At minimum you will need to setup a billing account and then add me as a user with "Billing Administrator" & "Project Owner" permissions.
Here's the steps on how to create a billing account
https://cloud.google.com/
Add as a Billing Owner
https://cloud.google.com/
Enable billing for a project
https://cloud.google.com/
Add a project owner
https://cloud.google.com/iam/
