Practical guide
Estimate Cloud Load Balancing cost
Model forwarding rules, processed data, and service-specific charges for a Cloud Load Balancing forecast.
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Forecast rules and bytes independently
Cloud Load Balancing pricing depends on the load-balancer type, forwarding rules, processed data, and sometimes proxies or optional products. Google lists hourly forwarding-rule prices and data-processing prices for applicable configurations. First identify the deployed scheme and location; a generic load-balancer rate is not reliable.
For a hypothetical global setup with three forwarding rules for 730 hours and 4,000 GiB processed, calculate 3 × 730 rule-hours plus 4,000 processed GiB. Apply the applicable official rates as separate lines. Add Cloud CDN, Cloud Armor, serverless backends, logging, and internet egress only where configured; they are not included merely because a load balancer exists.
Inspect billing exports and load-balancer metrics by rule and region. Traffic growth moves the data component; an infrastructure change moves the hourly component. The Cloud Load Balancing Cost Calculator models common forwarding-rule and us-central1 data-processing charges; check the selected scheme’s official table for other configurations.
FAQ
Does the forwarding-rule charge include egress?
No. Network data transfer can be a separate charge.
Do all load balancers have identical pricing?
No. Use Google’s table for the selected product and scheme.