Application Monitoring uses pay-as-you-go billing based on ingestion data volume for metrics, traces, and profiling. Archive storage is billed separately.
New users of Application Real-Time Monitoring Service (ARMS) are charged based on observable data volume. Existing ARMS users can upgrade their billing mode in the ARMS console. For questions, join the DingTalk group (ID: 37120013838).
Billable items
Data ingestion
|
Type |
Free storage period |
Monthly free tier |
Unit price (public cloud) |
|
metric |
90 days |
50 GB |
|
|
trace |
30 days |
||
|
profiling |
7 days |
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The ingested data volume is the amount of data stored on the ARMS observability platform after processing (cleaning, aggregation, transformation, and analysis). This volume is distinct from the raw traffic reported by ARMS-proprietary or open-source agents and SDKs.
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When billed by ingested data volume, each data type includes a free storage period. This period varies by data type and is fixed.
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After you subscribe to a paid plan, the monthly free tier applies at the Alibaba Cloud account level and is shared across all applications and sub-service instances.
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①Starting from 00:00 on July 1, 2024, Managed Service for OpenTelemetry will begin charging for its default performance statistics metrics. Custom metrics are billed based on their ingestion data volume. All metrics share the 25 GB monthly free tier provided for Managed Service for OpenTelemetry.
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Free tiers for metrics and traces cannot be transferred or combined between Application Monitoring and Managed Service for OpenTelemetry. For example, if you ingest 40 GB of trace data and 5 GB of metric data in a month, you are billed for 15 GB of trace data. The unused metric free tier is forfeited.
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Profiling data consists of files generated by the Continuous Profiling and Application Diagnosis features in Application Monitoring. This data includes memory snapshots, performance analysis flame graphs, and thread status and call stack information from thread analysis.
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For Application Monitoring and Managed Service for OpenTelemetry, the minimum daily usage for each billable data type per application is 0.1 GB. For example, if an application uses 20 MB of metrics, 10 MB of traces, and 0 MB of profiling data in one day, it is billed for 0.1 GB of metrics, 0.1 GB of traces, and 0 GB of profiling data.
Archive storage
|
Billable item |
Unit price in the Chinese mainland (USD/GB) |
Unit price in Hong Kong (China) and other regions outside the Chinese mainland (USD/GB) |
|
trace archive storage |
0.000263 |
0.000378 |
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Currently, only trace data can be archived.
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Archived data is billed based on uncompressed size. Daily fee = Daily cumulative uncompressed storage (GB) × Unit price per GB.
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To enable or disable archive storage, log on to the ARMS console. In the left-side navigation pane, choose . In the upper-right corner of the page, choose . Select an archive storage period or disable archive storage as needed. This setting is applied per region.
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Supported archive storage periods: 60, 90, and 180 days.
Billing cycle
ARMS bills daily. At 00:00 each day, the system calculates your resource usage from the previous day. Bills are typically generated before 08:00, and fees are automatically deducted from your account balance if sufficient. You can view bills on the Expenses and Costs page or check resource usage in the ARMS console. View bills and usage.
Activation
Click the activation link and follow the on-page instructions to activate the service.
Cost estimation
Estimate costs based on actual usage
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New to ARMS? Integrate a test application, then go to the page to view your data and estimate future costs.
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If you already use ARMS, go to the page to view your data and estimate future costs.
Take application monitoring as an example. If you write 1,000 GB of data in China (Hangzhou) and 800 GB in China (Beijing) in a calendar month, your total monthly cost, after deducting the 50 GB monthly free quota, is: 0.062 * (1000 + 800 - 50) = USD 108.5.
Estimate costs based on business scale
Based on historical data, one agent generates approximately 2 GB/day under standard usage: QPS = 100, sampling rate = 10%, API-level metric aggregation enabled, online profiling disabled. The following table compares costs between the current and previous billing models:
|
Application scale |
Estimated monthly data volume |
New pay-as-you-go pricing |
Previous pay-as-you-go pricing |
Previous resource plan (These examples are for reference. You can purchase larger resource plans for greater discounts.) |
|
Small (50 nodes = 50 agents) |
3,000 GB |
USD 186/month |
USD 1,490.4/month 88% savings with the new model |
USD 776/month, 76% savings with the new model You must purchase two 28,800 Agent*Hour resource plans for USD 1,241.9. |
|
Medium (200 nodes = 200 agents) |
12,000 GB |
USD 744/month |
USD 5,961.6/month 88% savings with the new model |
USD 2,328.57/month, 68% savings with the new model You must purchase one 230,400 Agent*Hour resource plan for USD 3,725.71. |
|
Large (500 nodes = 500 agents) |
30,000 GB |
USD 1,860/month |
USD 14,904/month 88% savings with the new model |
USD 4,657/month, 60% savings with the new model You must purchase two 230,400 Agent*Hour resource plans for USD 7,451.42. |
Minimum usage rule: Each application is billed for at least 0.1 GB per day for each billable data type (metrics or traces). The following example shows how to estimate costs for small-scale deployments.
Example: approximately 11 servers (low-load scenario)
11 servers × (0.1 GB metrics + 0.1 GB traces) × 30 days = 66 GB per month
After deducting the 50 GB monthly free tier, 16 GB is billed at USD 0.062/GB (Chinese mainland). Estimated monthly cost ≈ USD 0.99.
Actual costs depend on request volume and the number of monitored API endpoints. To verify your estimated usage, go to in the ARMS console.
Billing change
Billing model changes take effect account-wide. Review cost comparisons for all regions you use. If your account spans regions inside and outside the Chinese mainland, switch between regions at the top of the page to compare costs.
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After switching to the new billing model, only newly generated data is billed. Historical monitoring data from the free usage period is not retroactively charged.
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Products integrated with ARMS, such as EDAS, follow the same billing rules. Usage exceeding the free tier is billed at USD 0.062/GB (Chinese mainland).
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Log on to the ARMS console. In the left-side navigation pane, choose .
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Select a region in the upper-left corner, then click Billing Change Wizard in the upper-right corner.
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In Step 1 of the wizard, review the cost comparison between models, then click Next.
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In Step 2, perform the following steps:
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For Pro Edition users, review the resource plans that you want to unsubscribe from, and then click Next.
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For Basic Edition users, review the feature changes, and then click Next.
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In Step 3, click Go to Activation Page to subscribe to the new billing plan. After subscription, click Redetect to verify activation.
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Click Complete to finalize the billing change.
FAQ
Q: How do I check whether my account is using the new or old billing model?
Log on to the ARMS console and check the usage unit on the right side of the Overview page.
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If the unit is GB, your account uses the new billing model that charges based on ingestion data volume.
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If the unit is Agent*Hour or another unit, your account uses the old billing model.