Real User Monitoring (RUM), a feature of Application Real-Time Monitoring Service (ARMS), has been commercially available since June 24, 2024 (00:00:00 UTC+8). RUM uses a pay-as-you-go model based on observability capacity units (OCUs), with bills settled daily.
What is an OCU?
An observability capacity unit (OCU) is the billing unit for RUM. Each OCU includes a fixed number of sessions and custom reports. The allocation varies by application type:
| Application type | Sessions per OCU | Custom reports per OCU |
|---|---|---|
| Web and HTML5 applications | 200 | 600 |
| Mobile apps | 200 | 600 |
| Uniapp | 200 | 600 |
| Mini programs | 100 | 600 |
| Minigames | 100 | 600 |
RUM counts billing sessions in four-hour blocks. Any session shorter than four hours is rounded up to one billing session.
Sessions
A session is a continuous period of interaction between a user and an application. The session remains active until the user logs out. It captures all page visits, resource loading, and exceptions -- including crashes, Application Not Responding (ANR) errors, and JavaScript errors.
A session is updated in the following conditions:
Web, HTML5 applications, and mini programs:
The application is closed by the user or system.
No active data is reported for more than 30 minutes (idle timeout).
Mobile apps:
The application is closed by the user or system.
A backend server switchover exceeds 60 seconds.
Custom reports
Custom reports let you configure a custom reporting interface to track and report data beyond default metrics -- such as custom events, exceptions, and business-specific information. Custom reporting is optional, and each report counts toward your OCU usage.
Pricing
Free quota
If you use an Alibaba Cloud account to purchase an ARMS sub-service, you receive one free quota of 100 OCUs per month. This quota is shared across all applications and instances under the account.
The free quota is region-specific: it applies only to the region where you first use the ARMS service and cannot be used across regions.
Pay-as-you-go rates
| Region | Price per OCU |
|---|---|
| China (Hangzhou) | USD 0.023 |
| Singapore and US (Silicon Valley) | USD 0.033 |
Data retention
Default retention periods are included at no extra cost:
| Data type | Retention period |
|---|---|
| Detail data | 30 days |
| Metric data | 90 days |
Resource plans
Resource plans provide prepaid OCU quotas. Check the RUM buy page for current pricing.
A resource plan applies only to the region you purchased it for. Purchase a resource plan for the same region your application connects to.
To use resource plans, first activate pay-as-you-go billing. Resource plans offset usage against pay-as-you-go charges.
If your account has multiple resource plans, Application Monitoring offsets quotas in order of expiration date (earliest first). After all quotas are used up, additional usage is billed at pay-as-you-go rates.
| Specification | Validity period |
|---|---|
| 5,000 OCUs | 3 months |
| 10,000 OCUs | 6 months |
| 150,000 OCUs | 6 months |
| 630,000 OCUs | 1 year |
| 3.6 million OCUs | 1 year |
| 18 million OCUs | 1 year |
Billing cycle
RUM calculates resource usage starting at 04:00 each day. Bills are typically generated before 08:00, and fees are deducted automatically if your Alibaba Cloud account has enough balance.
View bills in the Expenses and Costs console.
View resource usage in the ARMS console.
Activate RUM
Go to the RUM activation page and activate pay-as-you-go billing.
(Optional) Purchase a resource plan to prepay for OCUs.