Managed Service for OpenTelemetry uses a pay-as-you-go billing method for data ingestion and storage of traces and metrics. This topic describes the billable items and pricing details for the pay-as-you-go model.
The prices in this topic are for reference only. For official pricing, see the Pricing page. page.
Basic concepts
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Trace: A trace represents the entire journey of a request or transaction as it moves through a distributed system.
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Span: A span represents a single operation within a trace. Each span is a named and timed segment of execution.
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Metric: A metric is a numerical measurement, such as request counts, response times, and error rates for your applications, interfaces, or databases.
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Relationship between a trace and spans: A trace is a collection of all spans that share the same trace ID within an account. A single trace can contain up to 10 spans, and each span has a maximum size of 2 KB. Data exceeding this limit is discarded. For more information, see Basic concepts of Managed Service for OpenTelemetry.
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Relationship between a trace and a metric: Ingested traces are aggregated to generate statistical metrics. Each trace corresponds to one metric.
Pay-as-you-go
The billable items for Managed Service for OpenTelemetry include trace ingestion, trace storage, and metric storage. The following tables describe the unit prices.
Managed Service for OpenTelemetry provides a daily free quota. If your usage is within the free quota, you are not charged. If your usage exceeds the free quota, you are charged for the total volume of traces and metrics that you use.
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Billable item |
Free quota |
Unit price |
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Ingestion fee |
1 million spans/day |
CNY 0.09/million spans |
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Trace storage fee |
1 million spans/day |
CNY 0.02/million spans/day |
|
Metric storage fee |
1 million metrics/day |
CNY 0.01/million metrics/day |
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Ingestion fees are based on the number of spans that you ingest. Ingested traces are aggregated to generate statistical metrics, such as latency, queries per second (QPS), and error counts for your applications, APIs, and databases. You can adjust the volume of ingested data by setting the sampling rate on the page in the Managed Service for OpenTelemetry console.
Example: Your application ingests 1 million requests, which equates to approximately 10 million spans, per day. Your average daily ingestion fee is 10 (million spans) × CNY 0.09 = CNY 0.9.
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Trace storage fees are based on the total volume of data stored and the data retention period. You can adjust the retention period on the page in the Managed Service for OpenTelemetry console to manage costs.
Example: You ingest 1 million traces (approximately 10 million spans) per day and store them for 15 days. The total storage volume is 15 (days) × 10 (million spans) = 150 million spans. The daily storage fee is 150 (million) × CNY 0.02 = CNY 3.
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Metric storage fees are based on the total volume of metrics stored and the data retention period. You can adjust the retention period on the page.
Example: You ingest 1 million traces per day and store them for 15 days, generating approximately 1 million metrics daily. The total storage volume for metrics is 15 (days) × 1 (million metrics) = 15 million metrics. The daily storage fee for metrics is 15 (million) × CNY 0.01 = CNY 0.15.
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Billing cycle:
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Managed Service for OpenTelemetry is billed on a daily basis. A bill for the previous day's usage is generated at 00:00 each day.
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Trace ingestion fees are calculated based on the traffic volume from the previous day.
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Trace and metric storage fees are calculated based on the total volume stored per day, which depends on the retention period.
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Enable pay-as-you-go
Activate Managed Service for OpenTelemetry
Billing time
Fees for the previous day's usage of Managed Service for OpenTelemetry are deducted from your account balance at 00:00 every day.
Pay-as-you-go examples
Example 1: You ingest 400 million traces (approximately 4 billion spans) per day.
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Scenario 1: Store all trace and metric data for 30 days.
Trace ingestion fee: 4,000 (million spans) × CNY 0.09 (unit price for ingestion) = CNY 360/day
Daily trace storage fee: 4,000 (million spans) × 30 (days) × CNY 0.02 (unit price for storage) = CNY 2,400/day
Daily metric storage fee: 400 (million metrics) × 30 (days) × CNY 0.01 (unit price for storage) = CNY 120/day
Total: CNY 2,880/day
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Scenario 2: Store trace data for 7 days and metric data for 30 days.
Trace ingestion fee: 4,000 (million spans) × CNY 0.09 (unit price for ingestion) = CNY 360/day
Daily trace storage fee: 4,000 (million spans) × 7 (days) × CNY 0.02 (unit price for storage) = CNY 560/day
Daily metric storage fee: 400 (million metrics) × 30 (days) × CNY 0.01 (unit price for storage) = CNY 120/day
Total: CNY 1,040/day
Example 2: You ingest 10 million traces (approximately 100 million spans) per day.
Store trace data for 7 days and metric data for 30 days.
Trace ingestion fee: 100 (million spans) × CNY 0.09 (unit price for ingestion) = CNY 9/day
Daily trace storage fee: 100 (million spans) × 7 (days) × CNY 0.02 (unit price for storage) = CNY 14/day
Daily metric storage fee: 10 (million metrics) × 30 (days) × CNY 0.01 (unit price for storage) = CNY 3/day
Total: CNY 26/day
Pricing advantages
As a managed alternative to self-hosted open source solutions, Managed Service for OpenTelemetry is designed to provide superior cost-effectiveness. While most open source APM solutions store data for only 7 days, the default 30-day retention period of Managed Service for OpenTelemetry may be less flexible for some users.
To provide greater flexibility, Managed Service for OpenTelemetry separates the pricing for computation and storage. This model allows you to adjust the data retention period in real time, giving you full control over your costs.
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Customer profile |
Number of nodes |
Daily requests |
Infrastructure configuration |
Self-hosting cost (CNY/month) |
Managed Service for OpenTelemetry (CNY/month) |
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Small |
80 |
20 million requests (Avg. complexity: 5 spans/request) |
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5,836 |
780 |
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Medium |
300 |
300 million requests (Avg. complexity: 7 spans/request) |
|
22,480 |
15,840 |
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Large |
1,000 |
1 billion requests (Avg. complexity: 8 spans/request) |
|
65,088 |
59,700 |
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The number of nodes refers to the number of ECS instances or Docker containers.
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Daily requests are estimated based on Apache documentation, which suggests a write size of 10 KB per trace.
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The infrastructure configuration is calculated based on a 15-day retention period for statistical data and a 7-day retention period for full trace details.
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Managed Service for OpenTelemetry is billed for data ingestion and storage, with storage costs based on the total volume stored (daily volume × retention period). The service uses an open source agent, while all other components are managed by Alibaba Cloud.