About
Elastic Load Balancing is an AWS networking service that automatically distributes incoming application traffic across multiple targets and Availability Zones. It is designed to improve application scalability, availability, and resilience while helping teams secure and monitor traffic in real time.
The service supports multiple load balancer types to fit different architectures, including Application Load Balancer, Network Load Balancer, Gateway Load Balancer, and Classic Load Balancer. It is commonly used to modernize container and serverless applications, scale hybrid cloud traffic, and preserve existing network appliance deployments.
- Automatically routes traffic across multiple targets and Availability Zones
- Supports application, network, gateway, and classic load balancing
- Includes SSL/TLS termination and certificate management
- Helps maintain high availability and automatic scaling
- Provides real-time health and performance monitoring
Free Tier Value
This is an intro-tier AWS Free Tier page, and the page explicitly states new AWS customers receive 750 hours/month shared between Classic and Application Load Balancers, 15 GB of Classic Load Balancer data processing, and 15 LCUs for Application Load Balancers. Using the provided intro-tier rule, the conservative monthly free-tier value is the sum of the listed components: 750 hours of ELB usage plus the Classic data-processing allowance and ALB LCU allowance, but the page does not provide enough pricing detail here to safely convert all three into a single dollar figure without over-assuming region-specific rates. The page also states that starting July 15, 2025 new customers receive up to $200 in AWS Free Tier credits, so the free_credit_amount_usd signal is 200 and free_tier_value_usd_per_month is left null because the intro-tier bundle is not fully price-convertible from the page alone.
What's included in the free tier
- Up to 750 hours per month shared between Classic and Application Load Balancers.
- Up to 15 GB of data processing for Classic Load Balancers.
- Up to 15 LCUs for Application Load Balancers.
See Elastic Load Balancing pricing for current limits.
Paid plans
Application Load Balancer
- hour
- partial hours billed as full hours
- LCU
- billed per minute
- new connections/sec
- 25 per LCU
- active connections/min
- 3,000 per LCU
- processed bytes/hour
- 1 GB per LCU for EC2/containers/IP targets; 0.4 GB for Lambda targets
- rule evaluations/sec
- 1,000 per LCU
- Charged for each hour or partial hour the load balancer runs
- Charged for Load Balancer Capacity Units (LCUs) used per minute
- Supports EC2, containers, IP addresses, and Lambda targets
- LCU dimensions include new connections, active connections, processed bytes, and rule evaluations
Network Load Balancer
- hour
- partial hours billed as full hours
- NLCU
- billed per minute
- TCP new connections/sec
- 800 per NLCU
- TCP active connections/min
- 100,000 per NLCU
- UDP new flows/sec
- 400 per NLCU
- TLS new connections/sec
- 50 per NLCU
- Charged for each hour or partial hour the load balancer runs
- Charged for Network Load Balancer Capacity Units (NLCUs) used per minute
- Supports TCP, UDP, and TLS traffic
- NLCU dimensions include new connections/flows, active connections/flows, and processed bytes
Gateway Load Balancer
- hour
- partial hours billed as full hours
- GLCU
- billed per minute
- processed bytes/hour
- 1 GB per GLCU for EC2/containers/IP targets
- Charged for each hour or partial hour the load balancer runs
- Charged for Gateway Load Balancer Capacity Units (GLCUs) used per minute
- Uses GWLBE endpoints billed separately
- Supports capacity-unit reservation
Classic Load Balancer
- hour
- partial hours billed as full hours
- data transfer
- per GB through the load balancer
- Charged for each hour or partial hour the load balancer runs
- Charged for each GB of data transferred through the load balancer
- Included in the AWS Free Tier shared hour allowance
- Simple hourly plus data-processing pricing
Pricing extracted from Elastic Load Balancing's pricing page. Always verify current pricing before committing.