# What does the GCP project need for Applane?

> One project inside your Workspace organisation, with billing linked and owner or editor rights. Vertex AI needs billing; an existing project is fine.

Source: https://docs.applane.dev/gcp-admins/prerequisites/

**Who:** GCP admin: owner or editor on the project  
**Time:** 5 minutes to check

Applane calls Google APIs from the employee's browser with the employee's own token. Google checks API enablement on the project that owns the OAuth client, and bills Vertex AI to that project. So you need one project, with three properties.

| Property | Why | How to check |
|---|---|---|
| It sits inside your Google Workspace organisation | The OAuth consent screen can only be Internal for a project that belongs to an organisation. Internal is what removes Google's app verification. | `gcloud projects describe <GCP_PROJECT_ID> --format='value(parent.type,parent.id)'` prints `organization` or `folder`. A project with no parent must be moved or replaced. |
| Billing is linked | Vertex AI refuses every request on a project without a billing account, even inside the free tier. | `gcloud billing projects describe <GCP_PROJECT_ID> --format='value(billingEnabled)'` prints `True`. |
| You are owner or editor | Enabling APIs and granting IAM need `serviceusage.services.enable` and `resourcemanager.projects.setIamPolicy`. | `gcloud projects get-iam-policy <GCP_PROJECT_ID> --flatten=bindings --filter="bindings.members:$(gcloud config get-value account)" --format='value(bindings.role)'` |

An existing project is fine. The setup tools only add what is missing: five APIs, one IAM grant, an optional budget alert. Nothing is deleted or changed. If a platform team already runs Vertex AI in a project, that project is the natural choice.

## What it costs

Google bills Gemini tokens to this project at list price. Applane adds no AI usage fee and never sees the bill.

In our own testing, a full day of building used $0.59 of Gemini tokens; that is the only number we have measured. Your usage depends on how many builders you have and how much they build. The [budget alert](https://docs.applane.dev/gcp-admins/budget-alerts/) is the control; the default it creates is 50 in the billing account's currency per month, with alerts at 50%, 90% and 100%.

Apps Script, Sheets, Drive and Docs have no per-call charge for Workspace users. What Vertex AI bills, and how the extension's context caching cuts it, is on [Model cost](https://docs.applane.dev/gcp-admins/model-cost/).

## What you will create

| Resource | What |
|---|---|
| Five enabled APIs | `script`, `aiplatform`, `sheets`, `drive`, `docs` (`.googleapis.com`). [The five APIs](https://docs.applane.dev/gcp-admins/apis/) |
| One IAM binding | `roles/aiplatform.user` to the builders group. [IAM](https://docs.applane.dev/gcp-admins/iam/) |
| One budget (optional) | Alerts only; nothing is cut off. [Budget alerts](https://docs.applane.dev/gcp-admins/budget-alerts/) |
| One consent screen | Internal, your own app name. [OAuth consent screen](https://docs.applane.dev/gcp-admins/oauth-consent-screen/) |
| One OAuth client | Web application, two redirect URIs. [OAuth client](https://docs.applane.dev/gcp-admins/oauth-client/) |

No service accounts, no keys, no buckets, no queues. Start with [Set up the project](https://docs.applane.dev/gcp-admins/setup/).