The new billing model for Application Monitoring of Application Real-Time Monitoring Service (ARMS) is based on the volume of ingested observability data. This topic describes the billable items and payment methods for this ingestion data volume-based billing model.
This billing plan is available to all new ARMS users. Existing users can switch to this model by using the billing change wizard in the console. If you have any questions, join the DingTalk group (group ID: 37120013838) for assistance.
Billable items
Data ingestion
Data type | Free storage | Monthly free tier | Price |
Metrics | 90 days | 50 GB |
|
Traces | 30 days | ||
Profiling | 7 days |
The ingestion data volume is the data stored in the ARMS platform after processing, such as cleaning, aggregation, conversion, and analysis, not the raw traffic reported by ARMS agents or open-source agents/SDKs.
This billing model includes a free storage period for each data type. These storage periods are fixed and cannot be modified.
The free tier is granted at the Alibaba Cloud account level upon activating a paid plan, and is shared across different applications/instances of sub-services under the account. The monthly free tier for Application Monitoring/Managed Service for OpenTelemetry can be used across regions and is deducted based on the billing order of the region or application; the first item billed receives the deduction.
①Starting from 00:00 on July 1, 2024, Managed Service for OpenTelemetry bills 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 of Managed Service for OpenTelemetry.
The free tiers for metrics and traces in Application Monitoring/Managed Service for OpenTelemetry cannot be transferred or combined. For example, if you ingest 40 GB of trace data and 5 GB of metric data in a single month, you will be billed for 15 GB of trace data, and you forfeit the remaining free tier for metrics.
Profiling data consists of files generated by Continuous Profiling and Application Diagnosis, which include memory snapshots, performance analysis flame graphs, and thread status and call stack information from thread analysis.
For Application Monitoring/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 a 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 | Price in the Chinese mainland (USD/GB) | Price in regions outside the Chinese mainland (USD/GB) |
Trace archive storage | 0.000263 | 0.000378 |
Currently, only trace data can be archived.
Archived data is billed based on its uncompressed size. Daily archive storage fee = Daily cumulative uncompressed storage (GB) × Price per GB.
To enable or disable archive storage: In the ARMS console, go to the page, and choose in the upper-right corner to choose an archive period or disable it as needed. Archive storage settings apply per region.
Supported archive periods: 60, 90, and 180 days.
Billing cycle
At 00:00 each day, ARMS calculates the previous day's resource consumption. Bills are typically issued by 08:00, and the fee is then automatically deducted from your account balance if it is sufficient. You can view your bills in the Expenses and Costs console and check your resource usage in the ARMS console. For more information, see View bills and consumption data.
How to activate
Go to the buy page of Application Monitoring and activate the sub-service as prompted.
Cost estimation
Estimate based on actual usage
If you have not monitored an application in ARMS, connect a test application to ARMS. Then, you can view data volume on the Usage Statistics tab of the Overview page to estimate the overall cost.
If you have applications monitored in ARMS, directly view data volume on the Usage Statistics tab of the Overview page to estimate the overall cost.
Estimate based on business scale
Based on existing data, under a standard usage model (QPS=100, sampling rate=10%, API-level metric aggregation enabled, online profiling disabled), one agent generates approximately 2 GB of data per day. The cost comparison between the new and old billing models is as follows:
Application scale | Estimated monthly data volume | New pay-as-you-go pricing | Previous pay-as-you-go pricing | Previous resource plan |
Small (50 nodes = 50 agents) | 3,000 GB | USD 186/month | USD 1,490.4/month (88% savings with new model) | USD 776/month, 76% savings with new model Two 28,800 Agent × Hour resource plans that cost USD 1,241.9 are required. |
Medium (200 nodes = 200 agents) | 12,000 GB | USD 744/month | USD 5,961.6/month (88% savings with new model) | USD 2,328.57/month, 68% savings with new model One 230,400 Agent × Hour resource plan that costs USD 3,725.71 is required. |
Large (500 nodes = 500 agents) | 30,000 GB | USD 1,860/month | USD 14,904/month (88% savings with new model) | USD 4,657/month, 60% savings with new model Two 230,400 Agent × Hour resource plans that cost USD 7,451.42 are required. |
Change your billing method
Billing model changes take effect globally for your account. Review the cost comparison for all regions you use. If your account uses both Chinese mainland and other regions, switch between them at the top of the page to compare cost changes.
Log on to the ARMS console. In the left-side navigation pane, choose .
On the Application List page, select a region and click Billing Change Wizard.
In the Cost Comparison step, review the cost comparison between the old and new models, and click Next.
In Step 2:
For Pro Edition users: Review the resource packages to be unsubscribed and click Next.
For Basic Edition users: Review the feature changes after the switch and click Next.
In the Activate step, click OK to subscribe to the new billing model. Then, click Redetect to check the activation status.
Click OK.