LCU Fees
Last updated: 2025-10-31 10:43:00
A Loadbalancer Capacity Unit (LCU) measures the performance metrics when CLB processes traffic. This document describes how the LCU charge is calculated.
Pay-as-You-Go
Note:
Only LCU-supported CLB instances will incur LCU usage fees.
Specification | Concurrent Connections per Minute | New Connections per Second (CPS) | Queries per Second (QPS) | Max Bandwidth |
Standard | 100,000 | 10,000 | 10,000 | 2Gbps |
Advanced 1 | 200,000 | 20,000 | 20,000 | 4Gbps |
Advanced 2 | 500,000 | 50,000 | 30,000 | 6Gbps |
Super Large 1 | 1,000,000 | 100,000 | 50,000 | 10Gbps |
Super Large 2 | 2,000,000 | 200,000 | 100,000 | 20Gbps |
Super Large 3 | 5,000,000 | 500,000 | 200,000 | 40Gbps |
Super Large 4 | 10,000,000 | 1,000,000 | 300,000 | 60Gbps |
LCU metrics
In the pay-as-you-go mode, LCU usage is measured by using the following four metrics: CPS, concurrent connections per minute, processed traffic, and rule evaluations. Rule evaluations are supported only for HTTP and HTTPS protocols. The performance of a single LCU is related to the protocol type of the listener.
HTTP/HTTPS
Metric | Description | LCU Coefficient | Number of LCUs per Hour |
CPS | Number of new connections per second. | 25 | Number of LCUs = Average number of new connections per second within an hour ÷ LCU coefficient |
Concurrent connections | Number of concurrent connections per minute. | 3,000 | Number of LCUs = Average number of concurrent connections per minute within an hour ÷ LCU coefficient |
Processed traffic | The total amount of outbound and inbound traffic processed by CLB instances per hour, in GB. | 1 GB | Number of LCUs = Total amount of traffic within an hour ÷ LCU coefficient |
Rule evaluations (only for HTTP/HTTPS) | Product of QPS and the number of layer-7 rules processed by the CLB instances. The first 10 processed rules are free of charge: For over 10 processed rules: Number of rule evaluations = QPS × (Number of processed rules – 10). For 10 or fewer processed rules, Number of rule evaluations = QPS. | 1,000 | Number of LCUs = Average number of rule evaluations per second within an hour ÷ LCU coefficient |
TCP/TCP SSL
Metric | Description | LCU Coefficient | Number of LCUs per Hour |
CPS | Number of new connections per second. | 800 | Number of LCUs = Average number of new connections per second within an hour ÷ LCU coefficient |
Concurrent connections per minute | Number of concurrent connections per minute. | 100,000 | Number of LCUs = Average number of concurrent connections per minute within an hour ÷ LCU coefficient |
Processed traffic | The total amount of outbound and inbound traffic processed by CLB instances per hour, in GB. | 1 GB | Number of LCUs = Total amount of traffic within an hour ÷ LCU coefficient |
UDP/QUIC
Metric | Description | LCU Coefficient | Number of LCUs per Hour |
CPS | Number of new connections per second. | 400 | Number of LCUs = Average number of new connections per second within an hour ÷ LCU coefficient |
Concurrent connections per minute | Number of concurrent connections per minute. | 50,000 | Number of LCUs = Average number of concurrent connections per minute within an hour ÷ LCU coefficient |
Processed traffic | The total amount of outbound and inbound traffic processed by CLB instances per hour, in GB. | 1 GB | Number of LCUs = Total amount of traffic within an hour ÷ LCU coefficient |
In pay-as-you-go mode, the billing cycle of LCUs are one hour. The number of LCUs consumed in one hour is calculated based on the aforementioned metrics, and fees are charged based on the maximum number of LCUs consumed by the aforementioned metrics. The LCU fees for a single CLB instance is the sum of the LCU costs of the listeners for different protocols.
LCU fees per hour = MAX[Number of LCUs for concurrent connections, Number of LCUs for new connections, Number of LCUs for processed traffic, Number of LCUs for rule evaluations] × LCU unit price
Pricing
Region | LCU Unit Price (USD/LCU) | Official Website Discount Price (USD/LCU) |
All regions | 0.0072 | 0.0059 |
Note:
Starting from 00:00:00, June 1, 2023 (UTC+8):
Newly purchased instances: For LCU fees of LCU-supported instances in pay-as-you-go mode, see the above discount price on the official website.
For existing CLB instances, the LCU fees and other billable items are not affected.
The final discount users can enjoy is subject to other configured discounts and cannot be combined with the discount price on the official website. For specific discounts, consult your business manager.
Billing examples
Assume that your LCU-supported CLB instance receives an average of 100 new connections per second, each lasting 3 minutes, that a client sends an average of 400 queries per second and CLB processes a total of 1,000 KB of query and response data per second, and that you have configured an HTTP listener on port 80 and an HTTPS listener on port 443, with 20 forwarding rules to route your client queries. You are charged on the following metrics:
Metric Name | Use Case | LCU Coefficient | LCUs Quantity Calculation |
New connections (per second) | In this example, your CLB instance receives 100 new connections per second. | 25 | Number of LCUs = 100 ÷ LCU Coefficient = 4 |
Concurrent connections (per minute) | In this example, your CLB instance receives 100 new connections per second, which means 6,000 new connections per minute. As each connection lasts 3 minutes, the maximum concurrent connections per minute = 6,000 × 3 = 18,000. | 3,000 | Number of LCUs = 18,000 ÷ LCU Coefficient = 6 |
Processed traffic (per hour) | In this example, your CLB instance processes 1,000 KB of data per second. This translates to 3.6 GB per hour. | 1 | Number of LCUs = 3.6 ÷ LCU Coefficient = 3.6 |
Rule evaluations (per second) | In this example, your CLB instance receives 400 queries per second on average. Therefore, 20 forwarding rules result in 4,000 rule evaluations per second for each query: (20 forwarding rules – 10 free rules) × 400. | 1,000 | Number of LCUs = 4,000 ÷ LCU Coefficient = 4 |
In this example, the maximum number of LCUs is consumed by the concurrent connections metric, which consumes 6 LCUs.
Therefore, hourly fees of LCUs = 0.0072 USD/LCU × 6 LCUs = 0.0432 USD, and monthly fees = 0.0432 USD/h × 24 hours × 30 days = 31.104 USD.
Assume that your CLB instance receives 100 new TCP connections (each transferring 1,000 processed bytes and each lasting 3 minutes) and 100 UDP flows (each transferring 1,000 processed bytes and each lasting 2 minutes). Your LCU fees will be calculated as follows:
TCP traffic
Metric Name | Use Cases | LCU Coefficient | LCUs Quantity Calculation |
New connections (per second) | In this example, your CLB instance uses 100 new connections per second. | 800 | Number of LCUs = 100 ÷ LCU Coefficient = 0.125 |
Concurrent connections (per minute) | In this example, your CLB instance receives 100 new TCP connections per second, each lasting 3 minutes. Therefore, the maximum number of concurrent connections per minute = 6,000 × 3 = 18,000. | 100,000 | Number of LCUs = 18,000 ÷ LCU Coefficient = 0.18 |
Processed traffic (per hour) | In this example, your CLB instance transfers 1,000 processed bytes for each TCP client connection. Therefore, the amount of traffic processed per hour = 100 connections/s × 60s × 60 min × 1,000 bytes = 0.36 GB. | 1 | Number of LCUs = 0.36 ÷ LCU Coefficient = 0.36 |
UDP traffic
Metric Name | Use Case | LCU Coefficient | LCUs Quantity Calculation |
New connections (per second) | In this example, your CLB instance uses 100 new UDP connections per second. | 400 | Number of LCUs = 100 ÷ LCU Coefficient = 0.125 |
Concurrent connections (per minute) | In this example, your CLB instance receives 100 new UDP connections per second, each lasting 2 minutes. Therefore, the maximum number of concurrent connections per minute = 100 × 60 × 2 = 12,000. | 50,000 | Number of LCUs = 12,000 ÷ LCU Coefficient = 0.24 |
Processed traffic (per hour) | In this example, your CLB instance transfers 1,000 processed bytes for each UDP client connection. Therefore, the amount of traffic processed per hour = 100 connections/s × 60s × 60 min × 1,000 bytes = 0.36 GB. | 1 | Number of LCUs = 0.36 ÷ LCU Coefficient = 0.36 |
The hourly fee for each protocol is calculated based on the maximum number of LCUs used by these metrics.
In the example of TCP traffic, the maximum number of LCUs is consumed by the processed traffic metric, which consumes 0.36 LCUs. Therefore, the hourly LCU fee for TCP = 0.0072 USD/LCU × 0.36 LCU = 0.002592 USD, and the monthly fee = 0.002592 USD/h × 24 hours × 30 days = 1.86624 USD.
In the example of UDP traffic, the maximum number of LCUs is consumed by the processed traffic metric, which consumes 0.36 LCU. Therefore, the hourly LCU fee for UDP = 0.0072 USD/LCU × 0.36 LCUs = 0.002592 USD, and the monthly fee = 0.002592 USD/h × 24 hours × 30 days = 1.86624 USD.
Then, the total hourly LCU fee of your LCU-supported CLB instance is 0.005184 USD/hour (with 0.002592 USD for TCP traffic and 0.002592 USD for UDP traffic).
The estimated total monthly LCU fee on average is 3.73248 USD/month (with 1.86624 USD for TCP traffic and 1.86624 USD for UDP traffic)
References
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