Billing for TIR Auto Scaling Groups

A TIR Auto Scaling Group bills for each VM it runs: the hourly price of the plan you chose, plus the disk of that VM above the free 30 GB. A group runs only on plans billed by the hour, so its cost follows the number of VMs it runs. The source snapshot is billed on its own; see What is billed separately.

The rates for every plan are on E2E’s pricing page. Before you save a group, Estimated cost gives an hourly range from the minimum to the maximum number of VMs, and the cost of one VM split into its compute and its disk. Once the group runs, its details page gives the cost of the VMs running now. The amounts are in your account’s currency, rupees or dollars. The bill goes to the owner of the project’s team, even when another member created the group.

When a VM’s compute is billed

Compute is billed by the minute at the plan’s hourly price. The start and the end of each period are rounded up to the next minute. Each VM is billed as its own line from the moment it is ready until it is removed.

What happens to the VM	What happens to its compute billing
The group starts a VM	Billing waits until the VM is ready
The VM becomes ready	Billing starts
The VM is down, for example restarting, in error, or waiting for its disk	Billing stops, and starts again when the VM is running
The VM is migrating or paused	Billing continues
The group removes the VM by scale-in, Scale Now, or a delete	Billing ends for the VM
The group replaces the VM after a failed health check	Billing ends for the old VM, and a new line starts when the new VM is ready

You pay for compute only on a VM that becomes ready.

What a stopped group costs

Stopping a group ends its compute billing. Each VM’s disk above the free 30 GB keeps billing while the group is stopped. When you start the group again, billing begins for each VM as it becomes ready. See Stop and start an Auto Scaling Group and Delete an Auto Scaling Group.

Disk charges

Each VM has its own disk, and the first 30 GB of each disk are free. Every GB above 30 is billed per GB per month for that VM. With a disk of 30 GB or less, the disk is free. A VM’s disk is billed from the VM’s first ready time.

Credit needed to launch

On a prepaid account, TIR checks your credit when the launch starts, after you send the form. If your credit is too low, the launch stops with an Insufficient Credits message that says how many credits to buy, and the group is Failed. To retry after you add credit, see Retry a failed launch.

What is billed separately

Snapshots are billed separately; see the VM billing page. Deleting a group leaves the snapshot, the source VM, the SSH keys, and the Security Groups in place.

For how a group decides its size, see How auto scaling works.