This topic describes the billing unit, billable items, and billing formulas of fully managed Flink.

Billing unit

The billing unit of fully managed Flink is compute unit (CU), which is a unit of measurement for computing resources. One CU is equal to 1 CPU core and 4 GB of memory.
Note The number of CUs determines the computing capability of the underlying system of Realtime Compute for Apache Flink.

The number of CUs that is consumed by a Realtime Compute for Apache Flink job varies based on the queries per second (QPS) of the input data stream of the job, the computing complexity, and the distribution of the input data.

The following table describes the processing capability of one CU in Realtime Compute for Apache Flink based on the operation complexity.
Business type Processing capability
Simple operations

Simple operations include single-stream filtering and string conversion.

One CU can process 10,000 data records per second.
Complex operations

Complex operations include JOIN, GROUP BY, and window functions.

One CU can process 1,000 to 5,000 data records per second.
You can estimate the number of CUs that you need to purchase based on your business scale and the preceding computing capability.
Note
  • The preceding computing capability estimate refers only to the internal processing capability of Realtime Compute for Apache Flink. The external data read and write capabilities are not included. The external data read and write efficiency may affect the computing capability estimate of Realtime Compute for Apache Flink.
    • If you want to use Realtime Compute for Apache Flink to read data from Log Service but the query quota of Log Service is limited, the overall computing capability of Realtime Compute for Apache Flink is subject to the capability allowed by Log Service.
    • If the number of connections or transactions per second (TPS) is limited for the ApsaraDB RDS database that Realtime Compute for Apache Flink references, the throughput of Realtime Compute for Apache Flink is limited by the throttling of the ApsaraDB RDS database.
  • If you use window functions in a Realtime Compute for Apache Flink job, the number of CUs that is consumed in the job is greater than the number of CUs that is consumed in a simple job. We recommend that you purchase at least four CUs for a job that uses window functions.

Billable items

The following table describes the billable items of fully managed Flink.
Billable item Description
Management resource When you create a cluster, the system deploys a console for the cluster. The console and its components require approximately 2 CUs of management resources.
Computing resource Computing resources are the resources that are used for computing. You are charged for the computing resources based on the subscription or pay-as-you-go billing method. The billing unit is CU.
Note An addition of 0.5 CUs are consumed after a session cluster that uses Ververica Runtime (VVR) 3.0.4 or later is run.
To activate a fully managed Flink cluster, you must pay for the fees of fully managed Flink. If you use other cloud services when you activate and use fully managed Flink, you are charged based on the billing method that is described in the following table.
Service Billing method
VPC For more information about the billing method, see Billing.
OSS For more information about the billing method, see Overview.
SLB After you activate a fully managed Flink cluster, the Server Load Balancer (SLB) service is automatically activated. You are charged for the use of SLB after you create a fully managed Flink cluster. For more information, see Pay-as-you-go.
Notice SLB allows you to access the console of fully managed Flink over the Internet. After you create an SLB instance, we recommend that you do not delete the instance or modify the configurations of the instance. Otherwise, the fully managed Flink cluster may become unavailable.
ARMS After you activate a fully managed Flink cluster, Application Real-Time Monitoring Service (ARMS) is automatically activated to provide Prometheus Service Pro Edition. For more information about the billing of ARMS, see Billing.

In the standard metric template that is provided, you are charged only for operator-related metrics. Operator-related metrics are described in the IO and Connectors section of "System metrics" in the official Apache Flink documentation. For more information, see Flink V1.11, Flink V1.12, and Flink V1.13.

Notice If ARMS is disabled, you cannot troubleshoot errors based on the information that is displayed on the Metrics tab in the console of fully managed Flink or configure monitoring alerts.

Billing formulas

Billing method Region Unit price (USD) Formula
Subscription China (Hong Kong) 47.55 per CU per month

The fee of a subscription cluster is calculated by using the following formula: Total price of a cluster = (Number of CUs that are used as management resources + Number of CUs that are used as computing resources) × Unit price × Subscription duration

Singapore (Singapore) 45.94 per CU per month
Indonesia (Jakarta) 42.23 per CU per month
Note The resource usage amount in your bill indicates the number of CUs that are used within a billing cycle. The resource usage amount is calculated by using the following formula: Number of CUs × Duration for which the CUs are used (unit: minutes). For example, the billing cycle is 60 minutes, and 10 CUs are used for 21 minutes and 20 CUs are used for 39 minutes within the billing cycle. In this case, the total resource usage amount is 21 × 10 + 39 × 20 = 990.