Billing

Billing reference for the IONOS Cloud Monitoring Service. What a sample is, how ingested samples and metric storage are counted, what counts toward billing, and how to estimate your costs.

The IONOS Cloud Monitoring Service bills based on two dimensions: the number of samples ingested into the platform and the volume of metric data stored in IONOS Cloud Object Storage. Understanding what a sample is, how ingestion and storage are counted, and how the two dimensions interact helps you estimate costs accurately and avoid unexpected charges.

Billing logic only. This page explains the billing model and counting rules. For current prices by region, see IONOS Cloud Prices.

What is billed?

The Monitoring Service charges for two independent dimensions:

Dimension	Billing unit	Notes
Ingested samples	Per 1 million samples per billing period	Counts new data points written to the service
Metric storage	Per GB per 30-day period	Accumulates based on retention settings

A high write rate increases your sample count. A long data retention period increases your storage cost. You can influence both independently.

How is a "sample" defined?

A sample is a single metric data point written to the Monitoring Service — one value, for one metric, at one point in time.

Example: An agent pushes the metric cpu_usage_percent every minute across 10 servers. Each push produces 10 samples — one per server per scrape interval. Over one hour, that single metric generates 600 samples.

Only ingestion counts. Querying, reading, or displaying existing data in Grafana does not create billable samples. Only newly written data counts toward billing.

How is usage counted?

• A sample is counted at the moment it is written to a Monitoring Service endpoint.

• The push interval is how frequently your monitoring agent sends data to the endpoint. Each client configures its own interval. A shorter interval increases your sample rate; a longer interval reduces it.

• Usage accumulates across all agents and pipelines associated with your contract.

• At the end of each billing period, the total ingested samples are rounded up to the nearest 1 million.

Estimate your monthly sample volume

A time series is one unique combination of metric name and label set — for example, cpu_usage_percent{host="server-01"} is one time series, cpu_usage_percent{host="server-02"} is another. Each scrape produces one sample per active time series.

Use this formula to project usage before deploying:

samples per scrape = total active time series
samples per month  = total active time series × scrapes per hour × 24 × 30

With a 1-minute push interval, there are 60 scrapes per hour.

Example: 200 metrics each tracked across 10 servers:

total active time series = 200 × 10 = 2,000
samples per month        = 2,000 × 60 × 24 × 30 = 86,400,000

That equals approximately 86 million samples per month, or 87 units of 1 million samples (rounded up to the nearest million).

Estimate your monthly storage cost

Metric storage accumulates based on how much data is retained. Storage is billed per GB per 30-day period.

storage GB per month = total active time series × bytes per sample × scrapes per hour × 24 × 30

The on-disk size of a compressed Prometheus sample is approximately 1–2 bytes. Use 2 bytes as a conservative estimate.

Example (continued): 2,000 active time series, 1-minute interval, 30-day retention:

storage per month = 2,000 × 2 bytes × 60 × 24 × 30 ≈ 0.17 GB

Retention length has a direct linear impact on storage cost. Halving your retention period halves your storage bill.

What counts and what doesn't?

Counts toward billing

• Each new metric data point pushed to a Monitoring Service endpoint

• Metrics sent from any source: on-premise agents, cloud virtual machines, containers, and external systems

• All Prometheus-compatible metrics pushed to your pipeline, regardless of metric type or label cardinality

Does not count toward billing

• Querying or reading existing samples through Grafana dashboards or the PromQL query API

• Internal Monitoring Service metrics, including ionos_usage_metrics_ingested_samples

• Metrics collected by Monitoring as a Service (legacy) — that service is billed separately

Monitoring as a Service vs Monitoring Service: The legacy Monitoring as a Service (MaaS) product is currently free. If you are migrating from MaaS to the Monitoring Service, your billing will begin as soon as your agents start pushing samples to a Monitoring Service endpoint. For a full comparison, see Frequently Asked Questions.

How to estimate and monitor your usage

Usage estimation in Grafana

The Monitoring Service includes a built-in Metric Usage Reporter that publishes ingestion data to your Grafana dashboard, updated approximately every five minutes.

Estimation only. The Metric Usage Reporter is a consumption indicator, not a billing record. Use the DCD Cost and Usage view or the Billing API as the authoritative source for billed amounts.

To view your ingestion volume:

1. In your Grafana dashboard, go to Explore.

2. Select Mimir as the data source.

3. Select ionos_usage_metrics_ingested_samples from the Metric drop-down list.

4. Click Run query.

Use it to detect unexpected ingestion spikes early and configure alerts before costs increase.

For more information and to set up alerts, see Metric Usage Reporter.

Cost and Usage view in the DCD

The DCD Cost & Usage view provides a breakdown of all billed services, including the Monitoring Service, with current list prices.

1. In the DCD, go to Menu → Management → Cost & Usage.

2. Select a Period to generate the report.

Billing data is updated at least once every 24 hours, so the current period may reflect a delay of up to 24 hours. For more information, see Cost and Usage.

Billing API

For programmatic access to invoice data and usage breakdowns, use the IONOS Cloud Billing API. The API returns daily and monthly aggregates, which you can integrate into internal reporting or cost management tools.

Common billing scenarios

Scenario	Billable?	Reason
Agent pushes 100 metrics every minute	Yes	New samples written on each push
User opens a Grafana dashboard	No	Reading existing data, not ingestion
User runs a PromQL query	No	Queries do not write new samples
Agent increases push frequency from 1 min to 30 sec	Yes, doubled rate	More frequent writes create more samples
Agent is offline for one hour	No charges during downtime	No ingestion, no billing
Metrics from Monitoring as a Service (legacy)	No	Legacy tier is free and billed separately

Pricing

Monitoring Service billing has two dimensions: ingested samples and metric storage. Both are priced independently.

For current prices by region, see IONOS Cloud Prices.

Price groups: Monitoring Service pricing uses Price Group J for ingested samples and Price Group C1 for storage. Your contract may include volume discounts or special pricing not reflected in the standard price list. Contact your account manager for details.

Next steps

We recommend reviewing the following resources to help monitor and manage your Monitoring Service costs.

• Metric Usage Reporter

• Cost and Usage

• Quick Start

• Frequently Asked Questions

Useful external links:

• IONOS Cloud Prices: Displays current prices by region

• IONOS Cloud Billing API: Provides programmatic access to invoice and usage data

• Cost Alert: Set spending thresholds and receive notifications