Cloud Monitoring Cost Calculator
Estimate Cloud Monitoring cost from time series, sampling period and sample size across the tiered per-MiB rates.
About Cloud Monitoring Cost Calculator
Monitoring bills ingested sample volume, and volume is time series multiplied by samples per month, so cardinality and sampling period matter far more than how many metric names you define. Because the rate drops in tiers at 100,000 and 250,000 MiB, large estates pay a much lower blended price than the headline rate suggests. One badly chosen label — a user ID, a request path, a pod name — can multiply time series by thousands and turn observability into a top-five line on the invoice. Confirm the current per-MiB tiers in the Google Cloud pricing calculator, and compare the alternative sampling period here before adding cardinality.
Formula
Cloud Monitoring Cost
ingested MiB = time series × (seconds in the month ÷ sampling period) × bytes per sample ÷ 1 MiB; cost = MiB above the free allotment priced through the 100,000 and 250,000 MiB tiers.
- time series
- One metric with one unique label combination — cardinality, not metric names
- sampling period
- Interval between samples; the volume driver most teams forget they control
- tiered price
- Per-MiB rate that steps down as monthly ingestion grows
Worked example
With the default values below, Cloud Monitoring Cost Calculator returns Monthly Cost of $5,148.18. Change any input above and every figure here is recalculated in your browser.
Inputs used
- Chargeable time seriesaccepts 0–10,000,000 series
- 5,000 series
- Sampling periodaccepts 1–3,600 seconds
- 60 seconds
- Bytes per sampleaccepts 1–10,000 bytes
- 96 bytes
- Free ingestion allotmentaccepts 0–100,000 MiB
- 150 MiB
- Price per MiB up to 100,000 MiBaccepts 0–100 USD/MiB
- 0.258 USD/MiB
- Price per MiB from 100,000 to 250,000 MiBaccepts 0–100 USD/MiB
- 0.161 USD/MiB
- Price per MiB above 250,000 MiBaccepts 0–100 USD/MiB
- 0.081 USD/MiB
- Monitoring API read callsaccepts 0–10,000,000 thousands/month
- 2,000 thousands/month
- Free API read callsaccepts 0–10,000,000 thousands/month
- 1,000 thousands/month
- Price per 1,000 API callsaccepts 0–10 USD
- 0.01 USD
- Alternative sampling period to compareaccepts 1–3,600 seconds
- 300 seconds
Results
- Monthly Cost
- $5,148.18
- Ingested Volume
- 20,065.4 MiB
- Billed Volume After the Free Allotment
- 19,915.4 MiB
- Ingestion Charge
- $5,138.18
- API Call Charge
- $10.00
- Samples Ingested
- 219,168,000 samples
- Blended Price per MiB
- $0.2580
- Cost at the Alternative Period
- $1,006.68
Step by step
- 1Values used
- 2Cloud Monitoring Cost
- 3Monthly Cost= 5,148.18
- 4Ingested Volume= 20,065.4 MiB
- 5Billed Volume After the Free Allotment= 19,915.4 MiB
- 6Ingestion Charge= 5,138.18
- 7API Call Charge= 10.00
- 8Samples Ingested= 219,168,000 samples
Assumptions and limits
- The result is derived only from the 11 inputs listed above. Anything not among them is not part of the calculation.
- In particular, this calculator does not take inflation or tax into account.
- Figures are rounded for display to 4 decimal places, so totals built from several rounded parts can differ slightly from the unrounded arithmetic.
How these calculators are built and tested is described on the Methodology page. If a figure looks wrong, please report it.
Frequently Asked Questions
How is Cloud Monitoring Cost calculated?
ingested MiB = time series × (seconds in the month ÷ sampling period) × bytes per sample ÷ 1 MiB; cost = MiB above the free allotment priced through the 100,000 and 250,000 MiB tiers. Monitoring bills ingested sample volume, and volume is time series multiplied by samples per month, so cardinality and sampling period matter far more than how many metric names you define. Because the rate drops in tiers at 100,000 and 250,000 MiB, large estates pay a much lower blended price than the headline rate suggests.
Why does Cloud Monitoring Cost matter?
One badly chosen label — a user ID, a request path, a pod name — can multiply time series by thousands and turn observability into a top-five line on the invoice. Confirm the current per-MiB tiers in the Google Cloud pricing calculator, and compare the alternative sampling period here before adding cardinality.
What values do I need to enter?
This calculator takes 11 inputs: Chargeable time series, Sampling period, Bytes per sample, Free ingestion allotment, Price per MiB up to 100,000 MiB, Price per MiB from 100,000 to 250,000 MiB, Price per MiB above 250,000 MiB, Monitoring API read calls, Free API read calls, Price per 1,000 API calls, Alternative sampling period to compare. The pre-filled defaults are a realistic starting point — replace them with figures from your own environment for a result you can act on.
Which metrics are actually chargeable?
Metrics written by Google Cloud services are free. You pay for custom metrics, Prometheus metrics collected by Managed Service for Prometheus, agent metrics and log-based metrics — which is exactly the set that grows when teams add instrumentation.