Serverless Cluster Cost
Serverless clusters in Zilliz Cloud use a pay-per-operation model, where you are mainly charged for the resources consumed by your read and write operations. This ensures you only pay for the actual workload processed, without the need to provision fixed capacity in advance.
The total cost of a Serverless cluster is the sum of the following components:
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Other costs (eg. Data transfer costs)
Vector database costs (write)
Write costs measures the compute resources consumed by insert, upsert, and delete operations.
Import and bulk insert operations do not incur costs.
Cost calculation
Vector Database Cost (Write) = vCU Unit Price x Write vCU Usage
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vCU Unit Price: $4 per million vCUs.
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Write vCU Usage: Calculated based on the data size involved in write operations.
Example
The table below provides a quick reference chart of vCU usage and costs for writing specific amounts of data into a Serverless cluster.
Data Size (*) | Write vCU usage (million) | Write Cost |
|---|---|---|
1 million 128-dim vectors | 0.125 | $0.5 |
1 million 768-dim vectors | 0.75 | $3 |
1 million 1536-dim vectors | 1.5 | $6 |
1 million 2560-dim vectors | 2.5 | $10 |
*The data size in the table above excludes scalars.
For larger datasets, simply scale the vCU usage and cost proportionately. For example, writing 10 million 768-dimensional vectors would use approximately 7.5 million vCUs and cost around $30.
For a precise calculation of the write vCU usage and cost, please refer to the following metrics:
Operation | vCU Usage |
|---|---|
Insert | 1 KB of inserted data = 0.25 vCU |
Delete | 1 deleted entity = 1 vCU Deleting a non-existent entity will also consume 1 vCU. |
Upsert | Calculated based on the size of the data updated and the number of entities deleted. Deleting a non-existent entity will also consume 1 vCU. |
Suppose you inserted 3 GB (3,145,728 KB) of entities into a Serverless cluster and then deleted 100,000 entities.
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Insert operation vCU usage = 3,145,728 x 0.25 = 78,643 vCUs -
Delete operation vCU usage = 100,000 x 1 = 100,000 vCUs -
Total vCU usage = 1,000 + 78,643 = 178,643 vCUs -
Total vector database cost (write) = 0.178643 x 4 = $0.72
Vector database costs (read)
This cost item measures the resources consumed by search, hybrid search, and query operations.
Cost calculation
Vector Database Cost (Read) = vCU Unit Price x Read vCU Usage
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vCU Unit Price: $4 per million vCUs
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Read vCU Usage: Depends on the following 3 factors.
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The number of search or query requests: The more searches or queries you conduct, the higher the vCU usage.
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The size of the data scanned in each search or query: The more data scanned, the higher the vCU usage.
Tips: During each search or query, Zilliz Cloud scans the whole collection in a cluster. If you use a partition key as a filter during a search or query, Zilliz Cloud will only scan part of the collection that matches the specified partition key, which can lower the overall read vCU usage.
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The size of the data returned in each search or query: The more data returned, the higher the vCU usage. For example, returning all fields including the vector field in a search will consume much more vCUs than a search that only returns the ID field.
📘NotesEach read operation will cost a minimum of 6 vCUs.
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Example
The table below provides examples of vCU usage and costs for 1 million read requests on varying amounts of data:
Scan Data Size (*) | Read vCU Usage (million) | Read Cost |
|---|---|---|
1 million 128-dim vectors | 5 | $20 |
1 million 768-dim vectors | 15 | $60 |
5 million 768-dim vectors | 35 | $140 |
10 million 768-dim vectors | 55 | $220 |
1 million 1536-dim vectors | 25 | $100 |
10 million 1536-dim vectors | 75 | $300 |
100 million 1536-dim vectors | 290 | $1160 |
10 billion 1536-dim vectors | 1,495 | $5980 |
1 million 2560-dim vectors | 30 | $120 |
*The data size in the table above excludes scalars.
In the table above, it can be noted that when the data size grow from 1 million to 10 million and even to 100 million, the vCU usage does not increase proportionately.
Storage cost
Storage costs are charged separately from vector database costs and depend on:
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Cluster cloud provider and region, type, and plan
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Storage usage
For details, see Storage.
Other costs
Add-on features are billed separately. The following is the sources of add-on costs:
- Data Transfer Cost: Charged for data egress over public internet and cross-region data transfer.
For details, see Data Transfer.