Load Balancer Billing
Prerequisites
Load balancer resources are all pay-as-you-go resources charged by hour, with a minimum of one hour price. Please first see General Pricing Rules and General Lifecycle Rules to know about basic pricing ways of pay-as-you-go resources.
Load Balancer currently includes the following pricing items: instance fees, LCU fees, elastic IP fees, and public data transfer fees.
Billing Items
Load Balance Instance
The billing method of the load balancer is Pay-as-you-go. You pay for your resources afterward by hour.
LCU
An LCU (Load Balancer Capacity Unit) is the smallest unit used to measure resources consumed by a load balancer. The number of LCUs is determined by the highest value among concurrent connections per minute, new connections per second (CPS), or data transfer per hour, and further affected by the LCU coefficient. It also varies based on the protocols of listeners.
Metrics
Concurrent Connections Concurrent Connections refer to the number of connections that are active and being handled simultaneously by a load balancing instance at a given time (per minutes).
CPS Connections Per Second (CPS) refers to the number of new connections that a load balancing instance can handle in one second.
Data Transfer Data Transfer refers to the amount of data, measured in gigabytes (GB), processed by a load balancing instance within one hour.
Protocols
TCP TCP, Transmission Control Protocol, is reliable and ensures all data arrives correctly and in order, making it ideal for web browsing, emails, and file transfers.
UDP UDP, User Datagram Protocol, is faster but less reliable, as it doesn’t guarantee delivery or order—perfect for streaming, online games, and real-time communication where speed matters more than accuracy.
LCU Coefficient
To calculate the number of LCUs, divide the highest value among concurrent connections per minute, CPS, or data transfer per hour by the corresponding coefficient based on the protocol type.
Concurrent Connections
100,000
50,000
CPS
800
400
Data Transfer
1 GB
1 GB
LCU Fee Formula
LCU fee = LCU unit price (USD/LCU) × Number of LCUs per hour × Duration (hours)
Number of LCUs per hour = max {Number of LCUs for concurrent connections, Number of LCUs for CPS, Number of LCUs for data transfer}
Number of LCUs for concurrent connections = Highest concurrent connections value/LCU coefficient
Number of LCUs for CPS = Highest CPS value/LCU coefficient
Number of LCUs for data transfer = Total amount of data transfer/LCU coefficient
LCU Billing Example
You create a pay-as-you-go load balancer with a TCP listener and a UDP listener. You release it after one hour. The following table describes the highest concurrent connections value, the highest CPS value, and the total amount of data transfer during this period.
Concurrent Connections
The highest value within the hour is 550,000.
Number of LCUs = 550,000/100,000 = 5.5
The highest value within the hour is 350,000.
Number of LCUs = 350,000/100,000 = 3.5
CPS
The highest value within the hour is 2,000.
Number of LCUs = 2,400/800 = 3.0
The highest value within the hour is 1,600.
Number of LCUs = 1,600/800 = 2.0
Data Transfer
The data transfer over TCP within the hour is 7 GB.
Number of LCUs = 7/1 = 7.0
The data transfer over UDP within the hour is 3 GB.
Number of LCUs = 3/1 = 3.0
The Number of LCUs:
For TCP listener per hour = max {Number of LCUs for concurrent connections, Number of LCUs for CPS, Number of LCUs for data transfer} = Number of LCUs for data transfer = 7
For UDP listener per hour = max {Number of LCUs for concurrent connections, Number of LCUs for CPS, Number of LCUs for data transfer} = Number of LCUs for concurrent connections = 3.5
Assume the LCU unit price is $0.02/h, then your LCU fee will be:
LCU fee = LCU unit price (USD/LCU) × Number of LCUs per hour × Duration (hours) = $0.02/LCU/h × (7 LCUs + 3.5 LCUs) × 1 h = $0.21
Elastic IP
Elastic IP billing is based on usage time (hourly) and the number of IPs. Please refer to the order page for exact pricing.
Public Data Transfer
Public network fees can be billed by data transfer or flat rate. View Data Transfer and Flat Rate for more details.
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