Cloud Outage Analysis
GCP Outage Cost - Google Cloud History & Real Losses
Updated April 2026 · 6 major incidents documented
GCP Outage History
| Date | Services | Duration | Impact | Est. Customer Cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oct 2023 | Cloud Run, GKE, Cloud Storage | ~6 hours | Multi-region storage degradation | $15M+ est. |
| Jun 2023 | Cloud SQL, Cloud Spanner | ~4 hours | Database service disruption | $10M+ est. |
| Nov 2021 | Cloud Networking, VPC | ~3 hours | Networking degradation in multiple regions | $10M+ est. |
| Jun 2019 | Compute Engine, GKE, GCS, YouTube | ~4 hours | Major global disruption affecting YouTube, Gmail, Drive | $50M+ est. |
| Mar 2019 | Cloud Storage (multi-region) | ~2 hours | Global Cloud Storage degradation | $10M+ est. |
| Apr 2016 | Compute Engine (US) | ~4 hours | Significant US compute disruption | $15M+ est. |
GCP SLA Credit Rules
| Monthly Uptime % | Compute Engine Credit | GKE Credit |
|---|---|---|
| 99.95%+ | No credit (SLA met) | No credit |
| 99% - 99.95% | 10% | 10% |
| 95% - 99% | 25% | 25% |
| <95% | 50% | 50% |
Credits applied as GCP billing credits. Claims within 30 days. Full credit vs loss analysis.
Frequently Asked
How reliable is Google Cloud Platform?
GCP has a generally strong reliability record with fewer major incidents than AWS us-east-1. However, GCP's June 2019 multi-region outage lasted ~4 hours and affected YouTube, Gmail, and thousands of customer services globally. GCP's global network architecture means incidents can scale globally quickly.
How do GCP SLA credits work?
GCP credits are 10-50% of monthly service fees depending on severity. Compute Engine credits range from 10% (99%-99.95% uptime) to 50% (below 95%). Claims within 30 days. Credits are GCP billing credits, not cash, calculated from service fees - not your revenue loss.