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Understand your Synthetic Monitoring invoice

Synthetic Monitoring is metered on the number of check executions.

Billing calculations

A check execution is a single run of a synthetic test in a single location, up to one minute in duration.

For example:

  • You create a check that runs every minute in three probe locations. That equals to three check executions per minute.
  • You create a check that runs every five minutes in one location, and your check takes three minutes and thirty seconds to complete. That equals to four check executions every five minutes.

As you can see in the examples, the number of probes for each check, and the time it takes for your check to complete affect your total number of check executions. The check execution time is rounded up, so if a check takes three minutes and one second to run, that counts as four check executions.

The formula for calculating your check executions can be represented by:

(round up(check execution time) * number of probes * frequency)

Usage calculator

When creating or editing a check, the Synthetic Monitoring UI has a built-in calculator that shows the quantity of checks per month, active series , data points per minute, and log usage to expect for the check.

The Synthetic Monitoring calculator in the Grafana Cloud “Edit check” page, showing the approximate usage for a check

Credit for active series

Each executed check also generates logs, metrics, and active series. In Grafana Cloud, an active series is a time series that has received new data points within the last 30 minutes.

For Synthetic Monitoring users, a credit of 30 active series for every 10,000 check executions is applied to your invoice, to offset the active series generated by Synthetic Monitoring.

For more details about active series, refer to Understand your Grafana Cloud Metrics invoice.

Billing metrics variance

The aggregation of execution counts can cause the billable amount to vary +/- 0.5% from the true value. To account for this, Grafana Cloud reduces the billable amount by 0.5% to avoid any overbilling.