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Understand your Synthetic Monitoring invoice

Synthetic Monitoring is metered on the number of test executions.

Billing calculations

A test execution is a synthetic test running in a probe location, per minute of run time.

To estimate the number of test executions per month, you’ll need the following information:

  • Number of locations (probes)
  • Number of synthetic checks (tests)
  • Duration of a test execution (rounded up to the nearest minute)
  • Frequency of testing (in minutes)

Using the preceding list, you can estimate the number of test executions per month by applying this formula (where 43,200 is the total minutes in a 30 day month):

(probes x tests x duration x (43,200 / frequency)

For example:

  • You create a check that runs every minute in three probe locations. That equals to three test executions per minute, or 129,600 test executions per month.
  • 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 test executions every five minutes, or 34,560 test executions per month.

Usage calculator

When creating or editing a check, the Synthetic Monitoring UI has a built-in calculator that shows the volume of test executions 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

Probe locations

Synthetic Monitoring test executions are counted in both public and private probe locations. In both cases, test execution is managed by Synthetic Monitoring and results are sent to and managed by Grafana Cloud.

Credit for active series

Each executed test 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 test 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.