Yearly/Monthly

Application Scenarios

If you want to ensure resource stability over a certain period of time, yearly/monthly billing is a good choice for the following types of workloads:

• Long-term workloads with stable resource requirements, such as official websites and blogs.
• Long-term projects, such as scientific research projects and large-scale events.
• Workloads with predictable traffic bursts, for example, e-commerce promotions or festivals.
• Workloads with high data security requirements.

Billing Items

Table 1 lists the billing items of yearly/monthly load balancers.

If you want to purchase a one-month dedicated load balancer with fixed specifications, deploy it in two AZs, and select application load balancing – small I and network load balancing – small I, the prices will be displayed as follows:

Figure 1 Example prices

You are charged for:

• Network load balancing: number of LCUs of each fixed specification.
• Application load balancing: number of LCUs of each fixed specification.

• If you deploy a dedicated load balancer in multiple AZs, its performance will multiply as the number of AZs increases. The number of LCUs is calculated as follows: Number of LCUs = LCUs of the selected specification × Number of the selected AZs.
• If you bind an EIP to this load balancer, you will also be charged for the EIP and the bandwidth used by the EIP. For details about EIP pricing, see Elastic IP Pricing Details.

Billed Usage Period

A yearly/monthly load balancer is billed for the purchased duration. The billing starts from when you activated or renewed the subscription, and ends at 23:59:59 of the expiry date.

For example, if you purchased a one-month load balancer on Mar 08, 2023, 15:50:04, the billed usage period is from March 08, 2023, 15:50:04 to April 08, 2023, 23:59:59.

Billing Example

Suppose you purchased a one-month load balancer with fixed specifications on March 08, 2023, 15:50:04, deployed it in two AZs, selected application load balancing – small I and network load balancing – small I, and renewed the subscription for one more month before the initial subscription expired. The following usage periods will be billed:

• March 08, 2023, 15:50:04 to April 08, 2023, 23:59:59
• April 8, 2023, 23:59:59 to May 8, 2023, 23:59:59

You will be billed for both usage periods. Table 2 shows the billing formula.

The prices in the figure are for reference only. The actual calculation is subject to the prices in the ELB Pricing Details.

Price Change After Specification Change

If the specifications of a yearly/monthly load balancer no longer meet your needs, you can change the specifications on the console. The system will recalculate the price and either bill or refund you the difference.

• If you upgrade the specifications, you need to pay the difference in price.
• If you downgrade the specifications, Huawei Cloud will refund you the difference.

Downgrading specifications will temporarily affect services.

• Network load balancing: New connections may fail to be established.
• Application load balancing: New connections may fail to be established and some persistent connections may be interrupted.

Suppose you purchased a one-month dedicated load balancer with fixed specifications on April 08, 2023, deployed it in an AZ, selected network load balancing – small I, and later you upgraded the specification to network load balancing – small II on April 18, 2023. The price for the original specification is ¥200/month, and that for the new specification is ¥400/month. The price difference will be calculated as follows:

Price difference for the specification upgrade = Price for the new specifications × Remaining period - Price for the original specifications × Remaining period

The remaining period is the remaining days of each calendar month divided by the maximum number of days in each calendar month. In this example, remaining period = 12 (Remaining days in April) / 30 (Maximum number of days in April) + 8 (Remaining days in May) / 31 (Maximum number of days in May) = 0.6581. Cost of specification upgrade = ¥400 × 0.6581 – ¥200 × 0.6581 = ¥131.62

For more information, see Prices for Changing Resource Specifications.

Impact of Expiration

Figure 2 shows the statuses a yearly/monthly load balancer can go through throughout its lifecycle. After a load balancer is purchased, it enters the valid period and runs normally during this period. If the load balancer is not renewed after it expires, before being deleted, it first enters a grace period and then a retention period.

Figure 2 Lifecycle of a yearly/monthly load balancer

Expiration Reminder

The system will send you a reminder (by email, SMS, or in-app message) before a yearly/monthly load balancer expires to remind you to renew the subscription.

• The system will send you a reminder 30 days, 15 days, 7 days, 3 days, and 1 day before a yearly resource expires.
• The system will send you a reminder 15 days, 7 days, 3 days, and 1 day before a monthly resource expires.

Impact of Expiration

If your yearly/monthly load balancer is not renewed after it expires, it changes to the Expired state and enters a grace period. During the grace period, you can access the load balancer but cannot:

• Change the specification of the load balancer.
• Change the bandwidth size.

If the yearly/monthly load balancer is not renewed after the grace period ends, its status turns to Frozen and it enters a retention period. You cannot perform any operations on the resource while it is in the retention period.

If the yearly/monthly load balancer is not renewed by the time the retention period ends, it will be released and data cannot be restored.

• For details about renewals, see Overview.