Alibaba Cloud Prometheus Service was released for public preview on September 17, 2020. Alibaba Cloud Prometheus Service is available in two editions: Trial Edition and Pro Edition. This topic describes the billing of Alibaba Cloud Prometheus Service.

Overview

You are charged for Prometheus Service based on the number of reported data samples on metrics and the storage duration of metric data.

The number of data samples is calculated based on the data model of open source Prometheus. A data sample includes the metric name, a set of labels, the timestamp, and values. Data samples are organized in a time series. For example, the kube_node_status_allocatable_cpu_cores metric is used to monitor the number of CPU cores that can be allocated per node in a Kubernetes cluster. If your cluster contains three nodes, data samples are collected from the three nodes and form three time series. If each node is sampled at an interval of 15 seconds, the total number of data samples reported per minute is calculated by using the following formula: 3 × (60/15) = 12 (data samples), as shown in the following figure.

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Notice The metrics are classified into basic metrics and custom metrics. Basic metrics refer to the metrics of Container Service for Kubernetes (ACK). For more information, see Basic metrics.
  • Data reporting fee: You are not charged a data reporting fee for basic metric data. You are charged a data reporting fee for only custom metric data.
    Metric type Trial Edition Pro Edition
    Basic metric Free of charge Free of charge
    Custom metric Free of charge Charged
  • Data storage fee: All metric data can be stored for 15 days free of charge. After 15 days, you are charged a data storage fee based on the storage duration of basic metric data and custom metric data.
    Metric type Trial Edition Pro Edition
    Basic metric Free of charge Charged after 15 days
    Custom metric Free of charge Charged after 15 days

Trial Edition billing

When you activate Application Real-Time Monitoring Service (ARMS) Trial Edition, you also activate Prometheus Service Trial Edition. The free trial ends at 00:00 on the 15th day after you activate the service.
Metric type Data reporting fee Data storage fee
Basic metric Free of charge Free of charge
Custom metric 2 million data samples can be reported for free per day Free of charge
Notice
  • For more information about how to use ARMS Trial Edition, see 15-day free trial of ARMS.
  • When the number of data samples on custom metrics reported to Prometheus Service Trial Edition reaches 2 million in a day, Prometheus Service stops receiving more data on that day. If you want Prometheus Service to continue receiving data, upgrade Prometheus Service to Pro Edition.
  • If Prometheus Service is not upgraded to Pro Edition after the 15-day trial period, Prometheus Service stops receiving data.
  • After the 15-day free trial, Prometheus Service deletes the received data.

Pro Edition billing

To continue using Prometheus Service after the free trial, you must activate Prometheus Service Pro Edition.
Metric type Data reporting fee Data storage fee
Basic metric Free of charge Charged after 15 days
Custom metric Charged. For more information, see Billing rules for Prometheus Service Pro Edition for the Alibaba Cloud public cloud.. Charged after 15 days
Notice

Billing rules for Prometheus Service Pro Edition for the Alibaba Cloud public cloud

Prometheus Service Pro Edition for the Alibaba Cloud public cloud is billed based on the following rules in regions in the Chinese mainland:

  • Data reporting fee:You are charged a data reporting fee for custom metric data based on the number of reported data samples in a day. Fees are cumulatively calculated by using a tiered pricing model in which the unit price decreases with each tier. The following table describes the data reporting unit prices of Prometheus Service Pro Edition for the Alibaba Cloud public cloud in regions in the Chinese mainland.
    Table 1. Data reporting unit prices
    Number of reported data samples in a day (million) Unit price (USD/million) Daily fee (USD)
    0~50 0.126 0~6.299
    50~150 0.102 6.299~16.535
    150~300 0.087 16.535~29.528
    300~600 0.071 29.528~50.787
    600~1200 0.055 50.787~83.858
    More than 1,200 0.039 More than 83.858
  • Data storage fee: Metric data can be stored for 15 days free of charge. By default, the Storage Days parameter is set to 15 days. If you change the value of the Storage Days parameter to a duration that is longer than 15 days, you are charged USD 0.01 for each million data samples that are stored per day.
Note
For example, you use Prometheus Service Pro Edition in the China (Hangzhou) region. Assume that the average number of data samples reported per day is 300 million, among which 200 million are basic metric data samples and 100 million are custom metric data samples. The following section describes scenarios in which the 300 million data samples are stored for 15 days and 90 days.
  • Total fee = Data reporting fee + Data storage fee. If the data is stored for 15 days, the total fee per day is calculated by using the following formula:(50 × 0.126 + (100 - 50) × 0.102) + 0 = USD 11.4
  • If the data is stored for 90 days, the total fee per day is calculated in the following way:(50 × 0.126 + (100 - 50) × 0.102) + [300 × 0.01 × (90 - 15)] = USD 236.4
Prometheus Service Pro Edition for the Alibaba Cloud public cloud is billed based on the following rules in the China (Hong Kong) region and regions outside the Chinese mainland:
  • The following table describes the data reporting unit prices.
    Table 2. Data reporting unit prices
    Number of reported data samples in a day (million) Unit price (USD/million) Daily fee (USD)
    0~50 0.176 0~8.819
    50~150 0.143 8.819~23.150
    150~300 0.121 23.150~41.339
    300~600 0.099 41.339~71.102
    600~1200 0.077 71.102~117.402
    More than 1,200 0.055 More than 117.402
  • Data storage fee: Metric data can be stored for 15 days free of charge. By default, the Storage Days parameter is set to 15 days. If you change the value of the Storage Days parameter to a duration that is longer than 15 days, you are charged USD 0.01 for every one million data samples that are stored per day.
Note For example, if the number of data samples reported on the first day is 150 million, the daily fee is calculated by using the following formula: (50 × 0.176 + (150 - 50) × 0.143) = USD 23.119.

Set the storage duration

By default, data is stored for 15 days free of charge. If you want to store data for a longer period, you can perform the following steps to modify the value of the Storage Days parameter:

  1. Log on to the ARMS console.
  2. In the left-side navigation pane, choose Prometheus Monitoring > Prometheus Monitoring.
  3. In the upper-left corner of the page, select the region in which the Prometheus instance resides and click the name of the Prometheus instance.
  4. In the left-side navigation pane, click Settings. On the page that appears, click the Storage Duration tab. Set the storage duration and click Save.
    Note
    • You can change the storage duration to 30 days, 60 days, 90 days, or 180 days.
    • You cannot set the storage duration for Prometheus instances for cloud services. For more information about Prometheus instance types, see What is Prometheus Service?