Cloud infrastructure

Google Cloud Platform (GCP) — contract review

GCP contract review: CUD vs SUD, BigQuery commits, support tiers and the typical EU data residency commitments.

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Google Cloud Platform is the third-largest hyperscaler and the most aggressive on pricing in head-to-head RFPs — typical proposals come in 15–25% under AWS list on equivalent compute. GCP's commercial vehicle is the Google Cloud Agreement with Committed Use Discounts (CUDs) for 1- or 3-year commits and automatic Sustained Use Discounts (SUDs) applied to long-running workloads.

GCP's standard SLA matches AWS and Azure for compute (99.99%), but the standard support tier (Basic) is below AWS / Azure parity — Business or Enterprise support is a paid upgrade. The data residency story in the EU is strong (Frankfurt, Belgium, London, Madrid, Finland) but metadata routing through the US is often the buried clause worth surfacing.

POCsheet's AI comparison extracts GCP's contract terms verbatim, evaluates them against your negotiation playbook, and surfaces deviations with suggested counter-language.

Typical contract terms

Standard contract term
1 or 3 years (CUD); 3-year is most common
Compute SLA
99.99% for standard zonal / regional deployments
Support tier
Basic included; Business / Enterprise as paid upgrade ($150–$500/user/month)
Egress pricing
$0.08/GB tiered; sustained-use discounts apply automatically
Data residency
5 EU regions; metadata may transit US unless specifically restricted

Common red flags

  • Strong

    Support tier hidden cost

    Basic support included = best-effort response. Equivalent P1 response to AWS Business requires a paid upgrade — factor into TCO.

  • Minor

    Metadata routing through US

    Customer data stays in EU but metadata (operational logs, support tickets) may transit US. For regulated industries, require explicit no-cross-border commitment.

  • Minor

    Liability cap below industry norm

    GCP's standard liability cap is 12 months of paid fees with limited carve-outs. Push for explicit carve-outs around data-breach indemnification.

Negotiation levers

  • Use GCP's aggressive pricing as a benchmark in AWS / Azure renegotiations even if GCP is not the chosen vendor.
  • Bundle Business support into the CUD pricing instead of separate add-on.
  • Request explicit metadata-residency commitment for EU workloads in writing.
  • Negotiate the liability cap up to 1.5× ACV with data-breach indemnity carve-out.

Alternatives to consider

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