platform so developers can exceed the free usage quotas that have been in place. Google also said it will soon be reducing, but not eliminating, the free quotas.

With the new billing capability, "developers can now purchase additional computing resources on App Engine, enabling apps to scale beyond our free quotas," Brett Slatkin, a member of the Google App Engine team, wrote in a blog post. "This has been our most requested improvement to App Engine and we're thrilled to deliver it, as promised."

When Google delivered App Engine in April 2008 it was free, albeit with usage quotas. And although the quotas remain, developers will now be able to pay to exceed those quotas. Slatkin said developers will have to "pay for only what your app consumes beyond the free thresholds—prorated up to the nearest penny."

App Engine remains free to get started, Slatkin said. "However, along with many performance improvements over the past 10 months, we've learned that we overestimated our initial free quota values," he said. "Therefore, in 90 days we will be reducing the free quota resources. We believe these new levels will continue to support a reasonably efficient application serving around 5 million page views per month, completely free."

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