API Usage Charge

General
3

Hello @CSG

Thank you for reaching out. We have reviewed the API usage of the ONE application for the current billing period.

During the entire period, the application was on the Scale Fixed – Tier 1 plan, which includes up to 5 API requests per minute. If the peak minute in a given hour exceeds this value, an overage is charged for that hour based on the tier the usage falls into.

As discussed in your previous topic (Unexpected $242.10 API Usage Charge on Scale Fixed Tier 1), this can be limited with the Max Tier Threshold setting. Requests above the configured threshold are rejected by the server with an error, so no overage above that threshold can occur. At that time, the threshold was set to Tier 1.

The application logs show that during the current period the Max Tier Threshold was switched between different tiers many times, and most of the time it was set above Tier 1. As a result, the server accepted requests up to the configured threshold, and they were billed as overage. All charges were calculated exactly according to the selected plan and the actual usage.

The application is actively used: almost every day the peak load reaches several hundred requests per minute. You can review it yourself in the Backendless Console:

  • Manage → Analytics → API Calls, period “past 30 days” — the load your application receives.
  • Manage → Analytics → Performance, period “past 30 days” — the peak number of requests per minute by day or by hour.
  • On the same screen, the Backendless Pricing Estimate section lets you compare what this load would cost on Scale Variable and on different tiers of Scale Fixed.

You can find more details on how the plans work here:

The same links are also available on the Billing Plans page and in the Backendless Pricing Estimate section.

With this level of usage, we recommend choosing a plan and tier that match your actual usage rather than limiting requests with the Max Tier Threshold. The Pricing Estimate will help you find the right option. For example, with Scale Fixed – Tier 7, the bill for this period would have been significantly lower.

Regards,
Viktor Mudrevsky