Estimated Costs (Serverless)
Webslice Serverless uses usage-based billing, which means you only pay for the resources you actually consume. To help you track and manage costs throughout the month, we provide close to real-time cost estimates that update within minutes of resource usage.
However, because serverless infrastructure involves many moving parts; compute time, memory allocation, database operations, storage, data transfer, and more all billing numbers should be considered estimates until your final invoice is generated at the end of each month.
Why “Estimates”?
Despite our close tracking, several factors mean the numbers you see during the month are estimates:
- Timing differences: Usage events from distributed systems may arrive and be processed at slightly different times
- Aggregation complexity: Combining metrics from compute, storage, databases, and data transfer requires complex calculations
- Metering delays: Some cloud infrastructure components report usage with minor delays
- Rate calculations: Final pricing calculations are reconciled with actual resource costs at the end of the month
Think of it like a utility bill: your meter reading gives you a good estimate, but the final bill reconciles everything precisely.
Estimate Accuracy
We take accuracy seriously and continuously work to ensure our estimates are reliable:
- Daily reconciliation: We monitor estimate accuracy against daily reports of billing data
- Ongoing improvements: Our estimation algorithms are constantly refined based on actual billing patterns
- Margin of error: Most estimates are highly accurate, typically within a small margin of the final amount
The final invoice amount may go up or down slightly from the estimate, but in practice, you should find the estimates closely match your actual charges.
Monthly Invoice
At the end of each billing period, the following actions are taken:
- All usage data is fully reconciled across all systems
- Final pricing calculations are performed
- Your invoice is generated with the final, authoritative amount
- This is the amount that will be charged to your credit card on the due date
The invoice represents the complete and accurate total for the billing period.
Spend Limits
Use Bill Shock Protection to set hard limits on your monthly spending. Spend limits are enforced based on estimates, protecting you from unexpectedly high bills even before the final invoice is calculated.
Our Commitment
Our goal is to make serverless and usage based billing as simple, clear, and fair as possible. We’re confident we’ve achieved that, but we also know there’s always room for improvement.
If we ever miss the mark, whether that’s unclear estimates, unexpected charges, or confusing billing please get in touch. Your feedback helps us build a better platform for everyone.