Monica on Google Cloud Run

Monica is an open-source personal relationship management (PRM) application — a "personal CRM" for organising how you stay in touch with friends, family, and contacts. This module deploys Monica on Cloud Run v2 on top of the App_CloudRun foundation, which provisions and manages the shared Google Cloud infrastructure.

This guide focuses on the cloud services Monica uses and how to explore and operate them from the Google Cloud Console and the command line. For the mechanics common to every Cloud Run application — service identity, ingress and load balancing, scaling and concurrency, CI/CD, Cloud Armor, IAP, Binary Authorization, VPC Service Controls, backups, and the deployment lifecycle — refer to the App_CloudRun foundation guide rather than repeating them here.

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What Monica costs on RAD, and how that compares

Running Monica in your own GCP project costs about $83.61/month in Google Cloud charges; RAD's module fee is a one-time 75 credits (or 67.5 credits in a RAD-managed project), covering setup and support -- not the ongoing cloud bill, which Google bills you directly in your own project or RAD meters hourly in credits in a RAD-managed one. Or see the GKE guide for the alternative deployment target; either way, if you deploy into a RAD-managed project you can pause the whole thing for free when you are not using it -- see Pause it for free below.

What you pay on RAD

	Your own project	RAD-managed project
Module fee	75 credits, once	67.5 credits, once (10% lower)
Build time	metered in credits as the build runs (a few credits, typically)	same
Google Cloud running cost	~$83.61/month, billed to your own billing account at Google's list price	~32 credits/day, metered hourly by RAD at list price plus margin

Default running cost in your own project

Resource	US$/month (Google list price, us-central1)
Cloud Run, 1x vCPU / 2 GiB (scaleToZero)	$13.16
Cloud SQL for MySQL, 1 vCPU / 3.75 GB, zonal, 10 GB SSD	$51.02
NFS/cache file server (small VM)	$13.43
Cloud NAT and networking	$5.00
Cloud Storage (add-ons, backups)	$1.00
Total	$83.61

How it compares

• Monica's own official hosted version costs $9/month ($90/year billed annually) (source: https://www.monicahq.com/en/pricing), run by the project itself with no infrastructure to operate -- the comparison that matters here is less the sticker price and more whether you want the vendor's own cloud or your own GCP project with RAD managing it.
• Running it yourself on a bare VPS is still the cheapest cash option -- Hetzner CPX22 (2 vCPU/4GB) runs about $24/month, a DigitalOcean 2 vCPU/4GB Droplet is also $24/month, and a GCP Compute Engine e2-standard-2 (2 vCPU/8GB) is about $49/month -- plus the admin's own time for backups, security patches and upgrades, which RAD's managed Cloud SQL, Secret Manager and monitoring cover for you -- but RAD's price is never meant to beat a VPS, only to replace the admin time a VPS still needs.
• Either way, this is a single-user personal CRM, so the running cost above is what actually drives the bill, not the module fee -- and that running cost is the one you can pause (see below).

Pause it for free: delete a RAD-managed project, restore it when you need it

This is the headline for a RAD-managed project. Deleting a RAD-managed project first unlinks its billing, then asks Google to delete the project outright -- Google's own 30-day recoverable soft delete. Unlike deleting one module, this does not tear down Cloud SQL, any VM or the compute resource one by one: the whole project simply stops, and nothing is charged while it waits, because billing is already unlinked.

Restoring, within 30 days and only by the project's owner, asks Google to undelete the project and reattaches its billing account, then asks you to run Update on each deployment to confirm everything came back. Because nothing was individually destroyed, that Update finds the same resources already there -- it is a check, not a rebuild, and an Update never charges the module fee again. This costs only a handful of credits (under US$1) in total for a typical 2-3-deployment chain.

What this needs: you must own the project (not one RAD only manages billing for), you must restore it yourself within 30 days -- after that Google deletes it for good -- and restoring is admitted like creating a new project, so your purchased credit balance must still clear the tier's floor (100 credits for the sandbox tier most study/demo use fits). Google says most services are fully working again within 36 hours of a restore.

One real gap: nightly backups are written to a bucket inside the project, and that bucket has Cloud Storage's soft-delete explicitly turned off, so it is very likely gone as soon as you delete the project -- even though the project itself is recoverable for 30 days. If you have customised the app and want to keep that work, copy a backup out (to Google Drive, or a bucket outside the project) before deleting. For a default install with nothing irreplaceable in it, this does not matter.

Pay only while you use it, the other way: delete and redeploy

In your own project (or once you are past the 30-day restore window above), the alternative is to delete Monica outright and redeploy it later. A redeploy costs the module fee again, plus the builds -- roughly 75 + 3-6 credits of build time.

Deleting saves money only once Monica would otherwise sit unused long enough to clear that redeploy cost against its own daily running cost -- against the own-project total above, that works out to about 3 days or more. Most of the running cost here is usually the database and the shared file/cache VM; they stop only when nothing else in the project uses them, so deleting this app while something else shares the project saves only this app's own compute part.

Keep data first: nightly backups go to a bucket inside the deployment and are deleted with it, so copy the latest backup out before deleting if you want to keep it.

Lab sessions and Managed Environments

• Lab sessions, for training: a trainer runs a session for a class. Each participant gets the app in their own Google Cloud project for 15 minutes to 24 hours, within an allowance the trainer sets. Either the trainer funds every place, or each participant pays for their own. Everything is deleted when the session ends and unused credits go back to the trainer.
• Managed Environments, for consultancies: a partner runs the app for a client from a ring-fenced wallet it funds, and settles with the client directly. If the wallet runs low, billing pauses and the data is kept, so nobody receives an unexpected charge. At the end the partner hands the project over and the deployments become the client's own.
• Credits can be bought in more than 20 currencies, including XAF, XOF, NGN, GHS, KES and ZAR, by card, bank transfer or mobile money.

Sources (8 October 2026): Google Cloud Billing Catalog API list prices; radmodules.dev/pricing for RAD's own fees and daily-credit estimates; https://cloud.google.com/resource-manager/docs/delete-restore-projects for the pause/restore mechanics; https://www.monicahq.com/en/pricing for the named competitor's price.

1. Overview

Monica runs as a PHP/Laravel container (official Apache image) on Cloud Run v2. The deployment wires together a focused set of Google Cloud services:

Capability	Google Cloud service	Notes
Compute	Cloud Run v2	Apache/PHP service, 1 vCPU / 2 GiB by default, serverless autoscaling; scale-to-zero supported
Database	Cloud SQL for MySQL 8.0	Required — Monica is fixed to MySQL
Object storage	Cloud Storage	A dedicated monica-uploads bucket for contact photos and documents
Persistence	NFS (enabled by default)	Keeps Laravel's storage/ uploads durable across cold starts and revisions
Cache	Redis (optional)	Off by default; used for cache/session when enabled
Secrets	Secret Manager	Auto-generated Laravel APP_KEY; database password
Ingress	Cloud Run URL / Cloud Load Balancing	Default run.app URL; optional external HTTPS load balancer + custom domain

Sensible defaults worth knowing up front:

• MySQL 8.0 is the fixed engine. database_type = "MYSQL_8_0" is set by the shared application layer; Monica does not run on PostgreSQL here.
• The image is the official prebuilt monica:<version>. No Cloud Build step — container_image_source = "prebuilt" pulls the Apache variant from Docker Hub, which serves on port 80.
• APP_KEY is generated automatically and stored in Secret Manager. It is a Laravel encryption key and must never be rotated after first boot — rotating it permanently corrupts every encrypted database field and invalidates all sessions.
• Migrations run automatically on start. The image entrypoint runs php artisan migrate --force on every container start, so the schema is created and upgraded on boot (after the db-init job provisions the database and user).
• Direct private-IP TCP to Cloud SQL by default. enable_cloudsql_volume = false on Cloud Run — Monica connects to MySQL over the instance private IP (the SnipeIT/Matomo Laravel-on-MySQL pattern), no Auth Proxy socket, no SSL required.
• NFS is enabled by default (enable_nfs = true) so uploaded files in Laravel's storage/ directory survive cold starts and new revisions.
• Scale-to-zero is enabled by default (min_instance_count = 0, max = 1). Cold starts add a few seconds of latency plus Apache/migration startup on the first request after idle; set min_instance_count = 1 to keep an instance warm.
• APP_URL is set from the predicted service URL so Laravel builds correct absolute links and the / → setup/registration redirect resolves on the right host.

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2. Google Cloud Services & How to Explore Them

All commands assume PROJECT and REGION are set. Service and resource names are reported in the deployment Outputs.

A. Cloud Run — the Monica service

Monica runs as a Cloud Run v2 service that autoscales by request load between the minimum and maximum instance counts. Each deployment creates an immutable revision; traffic can be split across revisions for safe rollouts.

• Console: Cloud Run → select the service for revisions, traffic, logs, and metrics.
• CLI:

  gcloud run services list --project "$PROJECT" --region "$REGION" --filter="metadata.name~monica"
  gcloud run services describe <service-name> --project "$PROJECT" --region "$REGION"
  gcloud run revisions list --service <service-name> --project "$PROJECT" --region "$REGION"

See App_CloudRun for scaling, concurrency, execution environment, and traffic splitting.

B. Cloud SQL for MySQL 8.0

Monica stores all application data (contacts, activities, reminders, journal entries, users) in a managed Cloud SQL for MySQL 8.0 instance. On Cloud Run the service connects over the instance private IP by default (enable_cloudsql_volume = false); no public IP is exposed. On first deploy the db-init Job creates the application database and user and grants privileges; the container's entrypoint then runs the Laravel migrations.

• Console: SQL → select the instance for connections, backups, flags, metrics.
• CLI:

  gcloud sql instances list --project "$PROJECT"
  gcloud sql instances describe <instance-name> --project "$PROJECT"
  gcloud sql connect <instance-name> --user=<db-user> --database=<db-name> --project "$PROJECT"

The instance name, database, user, and password secret are in the Outputs. See App_CloudRun for the connection model, backups, and password rotation.

C. Cloud Storage

A dedicated Cloud Storage bucket (suffix monica-uploads) is provisioned automatically for Monica's uploaded files (contact photos, documents). Additional buckets can be declared via storage_buckets.

• Console: Cloud Storage → Buckets.
• CLI:

  gcloud storage buckets list --project "$PROJECT"
  gcloud storage ls gs://<uploads-bucket>/        # bucket name is in the Outputs

See App_CloudRun for GCS Fuse and CMEK options.

D. Redis (optional cache)

Redis is disabled by default (enable_redis = false). When enabled, the foundation injects REDIS_HOST/REDIS_PORT; leaving redis_host empty while NFS is enabled uses the NFS server VM's IP as the Redis endpoint (the NFS VM co-hosts Redis).

• Console: Memorystore → Redis (if using a managed instance).
• CLI:

  redis-cli -h <redis-host> ping
  # Confirm the injected Redis env in the running revision:
  gcloud run services describe <service-name> --region "$REGION" \
    --format='value(spec.template.spec.containers[0].env)'

E. Secret Manager

One cryptographic secret is generated automatically and stored in Secret Manager: the Laravel APP_KEY (used for AES-256-CBC encryption of encrypted columns and for signing sessions/cookies). The database password is managed separately by the foundation.

• Console: Security → Secret Manager.
• CLI:

  gcloud secrets list --project "$PROJECT" --filter="name~monica-app-key"
  gcloud secrets versions access latest --secret=<secret-name> --project "$PROJECT"

See App_CloudRun for injection and rotation details.

F. Networking & ingress

The service is reachable at its run.app URL by default. An external HTTPS load balancer with a custom domain, Cloud CDN, and Cloud Armor can be layered on; ingress settings and VPC egress control connectivity.

• Console: Cloud Run (service URL); Network services → Load balancing.
• CLI:

  gcloud run services describe <service-name> --region "$REGION" --format='value(status.url)'
  gcloud compute addresses list --project "$PROJECT"

See App_CloudRun.

G. Cloud Logging & Monitoring

Container logs flow to Cloud Logging; Cloud Run and Cloud SQL metrics flow to Cloud Monitoring, with optional uptime checks and alert policies.

• Console: Logging → Logs Explorer; Monitoring → Dashboards / Alerting.
• CLI:

  gcloud run services logs read <service-name> --project "$PROJECT" --region "$REGION" --limit 50

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3. Monica Application Behaviour

• First-deploy database setup. An initialization Job runs db-init.sh using mysql:8.0-debian. It connects over the Cloud SQL socket (when mounted) or the private IP, and idempotently creates the application database and user, grants privileges, and verifies the app user can connect. The job is safe to re-run.
• Migrations run automatically on start. The official Monica image's entrypoint runs php artisan migrate --force on every container start — there is no separate migration job. The schema is created on first boot (after db-init) and upgraded automatically when you bump application_version.
• APP_KEY is immutable after first boot. It is generated once and written to Secret Manager. Changing it permanently corrupts all encrypted database fields and invalidates every session — only rotate during a planned maintenance window with a full data re-encryption plan.
• First-run setup in the UI. Monica has no default credentials. Open the service URL: an unauthenticated visitor is redirected to the registration/setup page. The first account you create becomes the administrator. Register with admin@techequity.cloud for RAD deployments.
• File uploads need persistence. Uploaded photos/documents live under Laravel's storage/. NFS is enabled by default so they survive cold starts and revisions; the monica-uploads GCS bucket is also provisioned. Disabling NFS risks losing uploaded files on the next cold start.
• Health path. The startup probe is TCP on / (passes as soon as Apache binds the port) and the liveness probe is HTTP GET / (Monica's home page returns 200). Allow a generous first-boot window for Apache startup plus the initial php artisan migrate --force.
• Inspect job execution:

  gcloud run jobs list --project "$PROJECT" --region "$REGION"
  gcloud run jobs executions list --job <db-init-job-name> --project "$PROJECT" --region "$REGION"

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4. Configuration Variables

Variables are grouped exactly as they appear on the deployment platform. Only settings specific to or notable for Monica are listed; every other input is inherited from App_CloudRun with its standard behaviour.

Group 3 — Application Identity

Variable	Default	Description
application_name	monica	Base name for resources. Do not change after first deploy.
display_name	(set)	Human-readable name shown in the Console.
application_version	latest	Monica image tag; pin to a specific release in production.

Group 4 — Runtime & Scaling

Variable	Default	Description
deploy_application	true	Set false to provision infrastructure only.
container_image_source	prebuilt	Pulls the official monica image directly — do not change to custom.
cpu_limit	1000m	CPU per instance (1 vCPU).
memory_limit	2Gi	Memory per instance.
min_instance_count	0	0 enables scale-to-zero; set 1 to avoid cold-start + migration latency.
max_instance_count	1	Single instance is sufficient for a personal CRM.
container_port	80	Monica's Apache image listens on port 80.
enable_cloudsql_volume	false	Cloud Run connects to MySQL over private-IP TCP; the Auth Proxy socket is off.

Group 10 — Storage & Filesystem

Variable	Default	Description
enable_nfs	true	On by default — persists Laravel storage/ uploads across cold starts/revisions.
nfs_mount_path	/var/www/html/storage	Mount path inside the container.
create_cloud_storage	true	Provision the monica-uploads bucket (plus any in storage_buckets).
gcs_volumes	[]	Optional GCS Fuse volume mounts (requires gen2).

Group 12 — Database Backend

Variable	Default	Description
database_type	MYSQL_8_0	Fixed to MySQL 8.0.
db_name	monica	Database base name (tenant-prefixed at deploy). Immutable after first deploy.
db_user	monica	Application database user base name. Password auto-generated in Secret Manager.

Group 14 — Observability & Health

Variable	Default	Description
startup_probe	TCP / 30s delay, 20 retries	Passes when Apache binds the port; generous window for first-boot migration.
liveness_probe	HTTP / 300s delay	Monica's home page returns 200.

Group 21/22 — Redis Cache

Variable	Default	Description
enable_redis	false	Enable to add cache/session backing; injects REDIS_HOST/REDIS_PORT.
redis_host	""	Redis endpoint. Leave empty to use the NFS server IP (requires enable_nfs = true).
redis_port	6379	Redis port.

All other inputs follow standard App_CloudRun behaviour.

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5. Outputs

Returned on a successful deployment — the quickest way to locate and explore the running resources.

Output	Description
service_name	Cloud Run service name.
service_url	Default run.app URL of the service.
service_location	Region the service runs in.
stage_services	Stage-specific service details (Cloud Deploy).
load_balancer_ip / load_balancer_url	External HTTPS load balancer IP / URL (when enabled).
database_instance_name	Cloud SQL instance name.
database_name / database_user	Application database name / user.
database_password_secret	Secret Manager secret holding the DB password.
database_host / database_port	DB endpoint (private IP) / port.
storage_buckets	Created Cloud Storage buckets (monica-uploads).
network_name / network_exists / regions	VPC network, presence, regions.
container_image / container_registry	Deployed image and Artifact Registry repo.
monitoring_enabled / monitoring_notification_channels / uptime_check_names	Monitoring status, channels, uptime checks.
initialization_jobs	Names of the setup jobs (db-init).
deployment_id / tenant_id / resource_prefix	Naming identifiers.
project_id / project_number	Project identifiers.
cicd_enabled / github_repository_url / github_repository_owner / github_repository_name / cicd_configuration	CI/CD status and details.
artifact_registry_repository / cloudbuild_trigger_name / cloudbuild_trigger_id	Registry and build trigger.
vpc_sc_enabled / vpc_sc_perimeter_name / vpc_sc_dry_run_mode	VPC-SC status.
audit_logging_enabled / artifact_registry_cmek_enabled	Audit logging and CMEK status.

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6. Configuration Pitfalls & Sensible Defaults

Risk: Critical (data loss / outage / security) — High (service degraded) — Medium (cost or partial degradation) — Low (minor).

Inherited plan-time validation. This module passes its configuration through the App_CloudRun foundation engine, which validates values and combinations at plan time — a gen1 runtime with NFS/GCS mounts, an out-of-range redis_port/backup_retention_days, a database_type outside the supported set, IAP with no authorized identities. Invalid configuration fails the plan with a clear, named error before any resource is created, so most mistakes below are caught up front rather than at apply or runtime.

Setting	Sensible value	Risk	Consequence if wrong
APP_KEY (auto-generated)	Never rotate after first boot	Critical	Rotating it permanently corrupts every encrypted database field and invalidates all sessions.
db_name / db_user	Set once	Critical	Immutable after first deploy; renaming recreates the DB/user and destroys all data.
database_type	MYSQL_8_0	Critical	Monica is a MySQL app; a non-MySQL engine breaks the driver and migrations.
enable_nfs	true	High	Disabling loses uploaded contact photos/documents on the next cold start or revision.
container_image_source	prebuilt	High	Setting custom points the service at an unbuilt Artifact Registry image (Image not found).
container_port	80	High	The Apache image listens on 80; a mismatched port fails the startup probe.
APP_URL (auto-set)	Actual service URL	High	A wrong URL breaks absolute links and the / → setup/registration redirect (404 on the bad host).
enable_cloudsql_volume	false (Cloud Run)	Medium	Monica connects over private-IP TCP; forcing the socket is unnecessary and can leave DB_HOST as a socket path the client mishandles.
min_instance_count	0 (or 1 for warm)	Medium	Scale-to-zero adds cold-start + Apache/migration latency on the first request after idle.
memory_limit	2Gi	Medium	Trimming too far risks PHP OOM during first-boot migrations and heavy pages.
enable_redis	off unless needed	Low	Optional cache/session backing; when enabled without a host and NFS off, the Redis endpoint is blank.

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For the foundation behaviour referenced throughout — service identity, scaling and concurrency, ingress and load balancing, CI/CD, Cloud Armor, IAP, Binary Authorization, VPC-SC, backups, and image mirroring — see App_CloudRun. Monica-specific application configuration shared with the GKE variant is described in Monica_Common.

Related guides

• Hands-on lab: Monica on Cloud Run — deploy it step by step, with the console screens and commands at each stage.
• Monica on GKE Autopilot — the same application on Kubernetes, for when you need the other deployment target.
• Monica Common — Shared Application Configuration — the configuration shared by both deployment targets.
• Deployed alongside Radicale on Google Cloud Run, Cal.diy on Google Cloud Run, ActualBudget on Google Cloud Run in the Personal Organiser solution.