Server Load Balancer:NLB billing

Pay-as-you-go

Billable items

The total cost of an NLB instance has three components: an instance fee, an LCU fee, and an internet data transfer fee.

Instance fee

You are charged for an NLB instance hourly. A billing cycle is one hour. If you use an instance for less than an hour in a billing cycle, the usage is rounded up to one hour. The billing duration starts when you create the instance and ends when you release it.

Instance fee = Instance unit price (USD/hour) × Billing duration (hours)

LCU fee

A load balancer capacity unit (LCU) is the smallest unit for measuring the resources that a load balancer consumes.

LCU usage

Hourly LCU fee = LCU unit price (USD/LCU) × Number of LCUs per hour

Number of LCUs per hour = max(LCUs for new connections, LCUs for concurrent connections, LCUs for data transfer)

The performance metrics of a single LCU depend on the protocol of the NLB listener.

• TCP traffic

  Metric	Description	Metering interval	LCU coefficient	LCU calculation
  New connections	New TCP connections established per second.	Per second	800	During a billing cycle, the system identifies the peak new connections per second and divides this value by the LCU coefficient to determine the number of LCUs. Number of LCUs = Peak new connections / LCU coefficient
  Concurrent connections	Concurrent TCP connections per minute.	Per minute	100,000	During a billing cycle, the system identifies the peak concurrent connections per minute and divides this value by the LCU coefficient to determine the number of LCUs. Number of LCUs = Peak concurrent connections / LCU coefficient
  Data transfer	The amount of data (in GB) processed by the NLB instance for TCP requests and responses.	Per hour	1 GB	During a billing cycle, the system totals the data transferred for TCP requests and responses and divides this value by the LCU coefficient to determine the number of LCUs. Number of LCUs = Total data transfer / LCU coefficient

• UDP traffic

  Metric	Description	Metering interval	LCU coefficient	LCU calculation
  New connections	New UDP connections established per second.	Per second	400	During a billing cycle, the system identifies the peak new connections per second and divides this value by the LCU coefficient to determine the number of LCUs. Number of LCUs = Peak new connections / LCU coefficient
  Concurrent connections	Concurrent UDP connections per minute.	Per minute	50,000	During a billing cycle, the system identifies the peak concurrent connections per minute and divides this value by the LCU coefficient to determine the number of LCUs. Number of LCUs = Peak concurrent connections / LCU coefficient
  Data transfer	The amount of data (in GB) processed by the NLB instance for UDP requests and responses.	Per hour	1 GB	During a billing cycle, the system totals the data transferred for UDP requests and responses and divides this value by the LCU coefficient to determine the number of LCUs. Number of LCUs = Total data transfer / LCU coefficient

• TCP/SSL traffic

  Metric	Description	Metering interval	LCU coefficient	LCU calculation
  New connections	New TCP/SSL connections established per second.	Per second	50	During a billing cycle, the system identifies the peak new TCP/SSL connections per second and divides this value by the LCU coefficient to determine the number of LCUs. Number of LCUs = Peak new connections / LCU coefficient
  Concurrent connections	Concurrent TCP/SSL connections per minute.	Per minute	3,000	During a billing cycle, the system identifies the peak concurrent TCP/SSL connections per minute and divides this value by the LCU coefficient to determine the number of LCUs. Number of LCUs = Peak concurrent connections / LCU coefficient
  Data transfer	The amount of data (in GB) processed by the NLB instance for TCP/SSL requests and responses.	Per hour	1 GB	During a billing cycle, the system totals the data transferred for TCP/SSL requests and responses and divides this value by the LCU coefficient to determine the number of LCUs. Number of LCUs = Total data transfer / LCU coefficient

For each listener, the dimension with the highest LCU count determines the hourly LCU consumption. The total LCU fee for an NLB instance is the sum of the LCU fees for all its listeners.

LCU unit price

The hourly LCU consumption is calculated from the actual usage after converting each dimension to LCUs. The measurement is accurate to 0.000001 LCUs. For example, if you consume 0.1 LCUs in an hour, the LCU fee for that hour is 0.1 × 0.005 = USD 0.0005.

LCU billing example

4,000 / 800 = 5.0

2,000 / 400 = 5.0

720,000 / 100,000 = 7.2

420,000 / 50,000 = 8.4

10 / 1 = 10.0

8 / 1 = 8.0

In this example, the dimension with the highest LCU count for the TCP listener is data transfer (10.0 LCUs), and for the UDP listener, it is concurrent connections (8.4 LCUs).

Hourly LCU fee for the TCP listener = USD 0.005/LCU × 10.0 LCUs = USD 0.05
Hourly LCU fee for the UDP listener = USD 0.005/LCU × 8.4 LCUs = USD 0.042
Total hourly LCU fee for the NLB instance = Hourly LCU fee for the TCP listener + Hourly LCU fee for the UDP listener = USD 0.05 + USD 0.042 = USD 0.092

Internet transfer fee

Internal-facing NLB instances do not incur an internet data transfer fee. This fee applies only to internet-facing NLB instances.

Internet-facing NLB instances use an elastic IP address (EIP) to provide services over the internet. You are charged for the associated EIP.

For more information, see Pay-as-you-go.