Load Balancer Instance Billing

Billing mode

Prepay instructions

Billing rules

• Prepayment can be made based on the selected purchase period, with prices varying according to the specifications chosen.
• The minimum purchase period is one month. A full-year purchase earns you an 8.3% discount for annual prepayment.

For details, refer to BLB Pricing Details. You can also preset BLB configurations in the BLB Price Calculator and view corresponding prices. EIP must be bound when purchasing BLB services. For EIP product pricing, refer to [EIP Product Pricing](EIP/Product pricing/EIP Instance Billing.md).

Postpay instructions by usage specification

Billing rules

Specific rules are as follows:
· Billed by minute, with fractions of a minute rounded up to a full minute.
· Deducted by hour, with charges deducted and bills generated at the top of the hour, Beijing Time. The bill time is within 1 hour after the current billing cycle ends. For example, the bill for 10:00-11:00 will be generated before 12:00, subject to the system billing time.
· Before purchase, ensure the account is free of debt and that the total of account balance and available coupons is greater than or equal to RMB 100.

Billing formula

Cost = Usage duration × Instance unit price × Instance count

Billing price

Prices may vary in different regions. For details, refer to BLB Pricing Details. You can also preset BLB configurations in the BLB Price Calculator and view corresponding prices. EIP must be bound when purchasing BLB services. For EIP product pricing, refer to [EIP Product Pricing](EIP/Product pricing/EIP Instance Billing.md).

Insufficient balance reminders and debt handling

• Insufficient balance reminder:

  • The system checks if your account balance (including available coupons) is enough to cover the next three days' costs based on your bill amount from the past three days. If the balance is insufficient, a renewal reminder will be sent.
  • The system checks if your account balance (including available coupons) is enough to cover the next day's costs based on your bill amount from the past day. If the balance is insufficient, a renewal reminder will be sent.

• Debt handling:

  • At the beginning of every hour, Beijing Time, the system checks if your account balance is sufficient to cover the current BLB bill (e.g., at 11:00 Beijing Time, it checks if the account balance can pay for the bill between 10:00 and 11:00). If the balance is insufficient, debt occurs, and the system will send a debt notification.
  • If debt occurs, the service will be suspended immediately, and a service suspension notification will be sent. Data will be retained for 7 days without additional charge. If no recharge is made within 7 days, the data will be released. The system will send a release notice one day before and at the time of release.

Postpay instructions based on usage

Billing logic

Postpay load balancer instances based on usage will generate the following two charge items:

Instance fee

Billed based on usage duration:
· Billed by minute, with fractions of a minute rounded up to a full minute.
· Deducted by hour, with charges deducted and bills generated at the top of the hour, Beijing Time. The bill time is within 1 hour after the current billing cycle ends. For example, the bill for 10:00-11:00 will be generated before 12:00, subject to the system billing time.
Instance fee price: The price for general-purpose BLB and general-purpose IPv6 BLB is RMB 0.15/hour, while the price for application BLB and application IPv6 instances is RMB 0.2/hour.

Usage fee (CU fee)

Convert actual usage to CU (Capacity Unit) and bill based on the count of CUs.
The specific CU conversion rules are as follows:

CU fee price:
The price for general-purpose BLB and general-purpose IPv6 BLB is RMB 0.04/CU/hour, while the price for application BLB and application IPv6 instances is RMB 0.049/CU/hour.

LCU aggregation logic:
For each instance: Count of CUs per protocol = maximum count of CUs generated per dimension.
Count of CUs generated by the instance =total count of CUs generated by each protocol on the instance.

Billing example based on pay-as-you-go mode

The user purchases an application BLB instance, establishes both TCP and HTTP listeners, and then releases them after using for 1 hour. Within 1 hour, the metrics used by the user are as follows:

In the first hour:

• CU consumption for TCP: Max(1CU,0.5CU,2CU)=2CU
• CU consumption for HTTP: Max(2CU,1CU,3CU,2CU)=3CU
• Total consumption in the first hour = 2CU+3CU=5CU
• Billing fee for the first hour: 0.2 (instance fee) + 5 * 0.049 (CU fee) = 0.445 (RMB)

Billing conversion

Prepaid instances and postpaid instances can be converted for billing after they are created. Check an instance for which you want to perform billing conversion, and select Shift Charge from the drop-down box above the list. In the pop-up, select the desired Charge Type and click OK. Proceed to complete the order.

Prepay to postpay billing rules:

After a prepaid instance is converted to a postpaid instance, the remaining unused amount will be refunded according to the usage. For details, refer to Shift Charge Description Document

LCU billing conversion effective time

When switching to the pay-as-you-go billing mode, the change will take effect after the billing system records it at the closest full hour.