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Load Balancer

Billing

Pay-by-CU

File transfer overview

NLB supports Pay-by-CU, a billing method based on the actual consumption of Loadbalancer Capacity Unit (LCU) by NLB instances. This is a post-paid billing method, allowing users to activate or release instances whenever necessary.

Purchase prerequisites

Your account has completed real-name verification.

Your account's available balance is not less than 0 RMB. If you need to recharge your account, refer to Recharge Guide.

Billing Description

NLB instance fee

Billing cycle: per hour

Billing formula: NLB instance fee = Instance fee + LCU fee

Instance fee = Instance unit price (CNY/Hour) × Usage duration (Hour)

0.147CNY/hour per instance.

Usage duration is calculated from the time the order is submitted, with durations of less than one hour billed as one hour.

LCU fee = LCU unit price (CNY/unit) × Number of LCUs consumed per hour by the instance (unit)

0.037CNY/unit.

The number of LCUs for an instance = Sum of the LCUs consumed by all listeners in the NLB instance.

The number of LCUs for a single listener = Max{Number of LCUs required for New Connections Per Second, Number of LCUs required for Max Connections, Number of LCUs required for processed data}

LCU Calculation Description

Performance Metric	Metric Description	Measurement Cycle	LCU Coefficient					LCU Calculation Description
Performance Metric	Metric Description	Measurement Cycle				TCP	UDP	LCU Calculation Description	TLS
New Connections Per Second	Number of new TCP, UDP, or TLS connections processed per second, measured in connections.	Second	800 connections/item	400 connections/item	50 connections/item	Calculation formula: Number of LCUs = Maximum New Connections Per Second ÷ LCU coefficient Maximum new connections: Maximum new connections are calculated by taking the highest value among the new connections per second within billing cycle.
Max Connections	Number of concurrent TCP, UDP, or TLS connections maintained per minute, measured in connections.	Minute	100,000 connections/CU	50,000 connections/item	3000 connections/CU	Calculation formula: LCU quantity = Maximum max connections ÷ LCU coefficient Maximum max connections: Max connections are calculated by taking the highest value among the max connections per minute within billing cycle.
Processed data	Amount of TCP, UDP, or TLS requests and responses processed by the NLB instance, measured in GB.	Hour	1 GB/item	1 GB/item	1 GB/item	Calculation formula: Number of LCUs = Total processed data ÷ LCU coefficient Total data processed: The total data volume is calculated by summing the data of all requests and responses within billing cycle.

Resource pack: If a resource pack is purchased, the instance and LCU fees will be deducted from the resource pack first. Any usage exceeding the pack limit will be billed according to the formula specified above. Learn more

Internet Fee

When the internet NLB instance is configured with internet connectivity via Elastic IP (EIP) or IPv6 gateway, the corresponding internet fees will be billed through the Elastic IP (EIP) or IPv6 gateway.

Refer to Elastic IP billing for the EIP fee.

Refer to IPv6 gateway billing for the IPv6 Internet bandwidth fee.

Price Calculator

Through the Price Calculator, you can view the instance unit price and LCU unit price (this price is for reference only, actual fees are subject to the console), and estimate the NLB fee based on the bandwidth demand of your business scenario.

Billing example

One enterprise created one Pay-by-CU internet NLB at 10:30:00 on September 20, 2024, and only created one TCP listener before releasing the internet NLB at 12:00:00.

The details of this TCP listener are as follows:

The calculation of LCUs for this TCP listener is as follows:

Billing cycle	Performance Metric	Valid Value	Number of CUs	Number of CUs consumed by the instance every hour
10:00:00-11:00:00	New Connections Per Second	6000	6,000 ÷ 800 connections/CU = 7.5 CUs	Take the maximum value, which is 7.5.
		Max connections value	80,000		80,000 ÷ 100,000 connections/CU = 0.8 CUs
		Processed data	6GB		6GB ÷ 1GB/item = 6 items
11:00:00-12:00:00	New Connections Per Second	8000	8,000 ÷ 800 connections/CU = 10 CUs	Take the maximum value, which is 10.
		Max connections value	100,000		100,000 ÷ 100,000 connections/CU = 1 CU
		Processed data	6GB		6GB ÷ 1GB/item = 6 items

Assume the instance unit price at that time is 0.147yuan/instance/hour, and the LCU unit price is 0.037yuan/unit. The fee for each billing cycle of the NLB is as follows:

Billing cycle	Instance fee (CNY)	LCU fee (CNY)	Fee (CNY)
10:00:00-11:00:00	0.147 x 1 = 0.147	0.037 x 7.5 =0.2775	0.4245
11:00:00-12:00:00	0.147 x 1 = 0.147	0.037x 10 =0.37	0.517

tip

Refer to Elastic IP billing for the EIP fee.

Refer to IPv6 gateway billing for the IPv6 Internet bandwidth fee.

Last updated: 2026.06.04 14:43:32