Public preview pricingThe prices on this page apply to the public preview and may change at GA. Customers who create Essential clusters during the preview will be offered a Price Protection Plan through the GA transition. Contact us for details. |
Request Capacity Unit
What is a Request Capacity Unit (RCU)
A Request Capacity Unit (RCU) is a unit of measure used to represent the provisioned compute capacity for your TiDB Cloud Essential cluster. One RCU provides a fixed amount of compute resources that can process a certain number of RUs-per-second. The number of RCUs you provision determines your cluster’s baseline performance and throughput capacity.
1 RCU represents sustained RUs-per-second capacity. A baseline of X RCU entitles the tenant to X RU/s averaged over 1-minute windows (or comply with our minimal calculation window).
What is a Request Unit (RU)
A Request Unit (RU) is a unit of measure used to represent the amount of resources consumed by a single request to the database. The amount of RUs consumed by a request depends on various factors, such as the operation type or the amount of data being retrieved or modified. Currently, the RU will include statistics for the following resources:
| Resource | RU Consumption |
| Read | 2 storage read batches consumes 1 RU |
| 8 storage read requests consumes 1 RU | |
| 64 KiB read request payload consumes 1 RU | |
| Write* | 2 storage write batch consumes 1 RU |
| 2 storage write request consumes 1 RU | |
| 2 KiB write request payload consumes 1 RU | |
| 16 KiB write request payload consumes 1 RU (for transactions** >= 16MiB) | |
| SQL CPU | 3 ms consumes 1 RU |
| Network Egress | 1 KiB read consumes 1 RU for Public Endpoint |
| 4 KiB read consumes 1 RU for Private Endpoint |
*Write: Each write operation is duplicated to multiple storage processes (3 for row-based storage without index), and each duplicate is considered a distinct write operation.
**Transaction: This applies only to optimistic transaction or autocommit.
RCU Pricing Detail
| Request Capacity Units Price | $0.20 per RCU/month |
| Request Capacity Units Price | $0.20 per RCU/month |
| Request Capacity Units Price | $0.24 per RCU/month |
| Request Capacity Units Price | $0.24 per RCU/month |
| Request Capacity Units Price | $0.24 per RCU/month |
| Request Capacity Units Price | $0.24 per RCU/month |
| Request Capacity Units Price | $0.28 per RCU/month |
| Request Capacity Units Price | $0.27 per RCU/month |
| Request Capacity Units Price | $0.22 per RCU/month |
Storage
The “row-based storage” refers to the storage space that stores data in a row-based format, whereas “columnar storage” denotes the storage technique that stores data by columns.
Row-based Storage & Columnar Storage Pricing Detail
| Row-based Storage Price | $0.20 per GiB-month |
| Columnar Storage Price | $0.05 per GiB-month |
| Row-based storage with dual-layer encryption | $0.30 per GiB-month |
| Columnar storage with dual-layer encryption | $0.075 per GiB-month |
| Row-based Storage Price | $0.20 per GiB-month |
| Columnar Storage Price | $0.05 per GiB-month |
| Row-based storage with dual-layer encryption | $0.30 per GiB-month |
| Columnar storage with dual-layer encryption | $0.075 per GiB-month |
| Row-based Storage Price | $0.24 per GiB-month |
| Columnar Storage Price | $0.06 per GiB-month |
| Row-based storage with dual-layer encryption | $0.36 per GiB-month |
| Columnar storage with dual-layer encryption | $0.09 per GiB-month |
| Row-based Storage Price | $0.24 per GiB-month |
| Columnar Storage Price | $0.06 per GiB-month |
| Row-based storage with dual-layer encryption | $0.36 per GiB-month |
| Columnar storage with dual-layer encryption | $0.09 per GiB-month |
| Row-based Storage Price | $0.24 per GiB-month |
| Columnar Storage Price | $0.06 per GiB-month |
| Row-based storage with dual-layer encryption | $0.36 per GiB-month |
| Columnar storage with dual-layer encryption | $0.09 per GiB-month |
| Row-based Storage Price | $0.24 per GiB-month |
| Columnar Storage Price | $0.06 per GiB-month |
| Row-based storage with dual-layer encryption | $0.36 per GiB-month |
| Columnar storage with dual-layer encryption | $0.09 per GiB-month |
| Row-based Storage Price | $0.24 per GiB-month |
| Columnar Storage Price | $0.06 per GiB-month |
| Row-based storage with dual-layer encryption | $0.36 per GiB-month |
| Columnar storage with dual-layer encryption | $0.09 per GiB-month |
| Row-based Storage Price | $0.24 per GiB-month |
| Columnar Storage Price | $0.06 per GiB-month |
| Row-based storage with dual-layer encryption | $0.36 per GiB-month |
| Columnar storage with dual-layer encryption | $0.09 per GiB-month |
| Row-based Storage Price | $0.24 per GiB-month |
| Columnar Storage Price | $0.06 per GiB-month |
| Row-based storage with dual-layer encryption | $0.36 per GiB-month |
| Columnar storage with dual-layer encryption | $0.09 per GiB-month |
Cost and Limitations
Throttling
For TiDB Cloud Essential clusters, the throttling policy is based on the provisioned Request Capacity Units (RCUs). When the workload exceeds the maximum RCU capacity, the cluster will automatically throttle incoming requests to maintain stability. Existing connections will experience throttling, but new connection attempts will be accepted as long as they don’t exceed the maximum RCU limit. This ensures predictable performance while protecting the cluster from overload.
Billing cycle
Each TiDB Cloud bill, corresponding to the previous month’s usage, is finalized at the start of every new month. This finalized bill is charged to your default payment method, typically occurring between the 3rd and 9th day of the respective month. If your usage within the current month reaches or exceeds $500, an automatic charge will be initiated. Note that the billing cycle operates strictly in accordance with the UTC (+00:00) time zone.
TiDB Cloud Quick Start
This tutorial guides you through an easy way to get started with your TiDB Cloud.
Proof of Concept Guide
Proof of Concept (PoC) is the best way to run performance tests and evaluate workload efficiency on TiDB Cloud.