This topic describes the billing methods, billable items, and pricing of Network Load Balancer (NLB).
Billing methods
NLB supports the pay-as-you-go and subscription billing methods.
Pay-as-you-go: You are charged for the actual usage of each billable item. Fees are deducted after resources are consumed. This billing method is ideal for scenarios in which the usage of resources is difficult to predict.
Subscription (resource plans): You purchase resources in advance to offset fees. Resource plans are ideal for scenarios in which the usage of resources is easy to predict.
The subscription billing method is more cost-effective than the pay-as-you-go billing method.
Resource overages are billed based on the pay-as-you-go billing method and included in the bills. We recommend that you purchase resource plans based on the services that you need and the estimated amount of resource usage. For more information, see Purchase an NLB resource plan.
Billable items
The following figure shows the billable items of NLB.
Billing cycle
Instance fees and LCU fees of NLB instances are calculated each hour based on the usage. In most cases, bills are generated 1 hour after a billing cycle ends. The time when bills are generated is determined by the system.
Internet-facing NLB instances charge an Internet data transfer fee. By default, Internet-facing NLB instances use elastic IP addresses (EIPs) to communicate with the Internet.
If an NLB instance uses an EIP to communicate with the Internet, the Internet data transfer fee is managed by the EIP. The billing cycle, bill generation time, and fee deduction time of the EIP apply. For more information, see Billing cycle.
If an NLB instance uses an Anycast EIP to communicate with the Internet, the Internet data transfer fee is managed by the Anycast EIP. The billing cycle, bill generation time, and fee deduction time of the Anycast EIP apply. For more information, see Supported regions and Billing rules.
Pricing
For more information about the pricing of each NLB billable item, see NLB billing rules and Introduction to NLB resource plans. The prices on the buy page shall prevail.
You can use the NLB LCU Calculator to estimate the number of LCUs consumed by your service.