AI Platform Prediction offers scalable, flexible pricing options to fit your project and budget. AI Platform Prediction charges you for getting predictions, but managing your machine learning resources in the cloud is free of charge.
Pricing overview
The following tables summarize the pricing in each region where AI Platform Prediction is available.
Prediction prices
This table provides the prices of batch prediction and online prediction per node hour. A node hour represents the time a virtual machine spends running your prediction job or waiting in a ready state to handle prediction requests. Read more about calculating prediction costs.
Americas
| Prediction | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Batch prediction | $0.0791 per node hour | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Online prediction |
Compute Engine (N1) machine types
(beta) are only available in the
The prices for Compute Engine (N1) machine types in the previous table approximate the
total hourly cost for each prediction node of a model version
using that machine type. For example, since an
The prices in the previous table are provided to help you estimate online prediction costs. The following table shows the vCPU and RAM pricing for Compute Engine (N1) machine types, which more precisely reflect the SKUs that you will be charged for:
You can optionally use GPU accelerators for online prediction with Compute Engine (N1) machine types. GPUs incur an additional charge, separate from those described in the previous table. The following table describes the pricing for each type of GPU:
Note that the pricing is per GPU, so if you use multiple GPUs per prediction node (or if your version scales to use multiple nodes), then costs scale accordingly. |
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Europe
| Prediction | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Batch prediction | $0.0861 per node hour | ||||||
| Online prediction |
|
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Asia Pacific
| Prediction | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Batch prediction | $0.0861 per node hour | ||||||
| Online prediction |
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Notes:
The pricing calculator
Use the pricing calculator to estimate your training and prediction costs.
More about prediction costs
AI Platform Prediction serves predictions from your model by running a number of virtual machines ("nodes"). By default, AI Platform Prediction automatically scales the number of nodes running at any time. For online prediction, the number of nodes scales to meet demand. Each node can respond to multiple prediction requests. For batch prediction, the number of nodes scales to reduce the total time it takes to run a job. You can customize how prediction nodes scale.
You are charged for the time that each node runs for your model, including:
- When the node is processing a batch prediction job.
- When the node is processing an online prediction request.
- When the node is in a ready state for serving online predictions.
The cost of one node running for one hour is a node hour. The table of prediction prices describes the price of a node hour, which varies across regions and between online prediction and batch prediction.
You can consume node hours in fractional increments. For example, one node running for 30 minutes costs 0.5 node hours. However, several rules govern cost calculations:
Cost calculations for legacy (MLS1) machine types and batch prediction
- The running time of a node is measured in one-minute increments, rounded up to the nearest minute. For example, if a node runs for 20.1 minutes, calculate its cost as if it ran for 21 minutes.
- The running time for nodes that run for less than 10 minutes is rounded up to 10 minutes. For example, if a node runs for only 3 minutes, calculate its cost as if it ran for 10 minutes.
Cost calculations for Compute Engine (N1) machine types
- The running time of a node is billed in 30-second increments. This means that every 30 seconds, your project is billed for 30 seconds worth of whatever vCPU, RAM, and GPU resources that your node is using at that moment.
More about automatic scaling of prediction nodes
| Online prediction | Batch prediction |
|---|---|
| The priority of the scaling is to reduce the latency of individual requests. The service keeps your model in a ready state for a few idle minutes after servicing a request. | The priority of the scaling is to reduce the total elapsed time of the job. |
| Scaling affects your total charges each month: the more numerous and frequent your requests, the more nodes will be used. | Scaling should have little effect on the price of your job, though there is some overhead involved in bringing up a new node. |
|
You can choose to let the service scale in response to traffic (automatic scaling) or you can specify a number of nodes to run constantly to avoid latency (manual scaling).
|
You can affect scaling by setting a maximum number of nodes to use for a batch prediction job, and by setting the number of nodes to keep running for a model when you deploy it. |
Minimum 10 minute charge
Recall that if a node runs for less than 10 minutes, you are charged as if it ran for 10 minutes. For example, suppose you use automatic scaling. During a period with no traffic, zero nodes are in use. If you receive a single online prediction request, then one node scales up to handle the request. After it handles the request, the node continues running for few minutes in a ready state. Then it stops running. Even if the node ran for less than 10 minutes, you are charged for 10 node minutes (0.17 node hour) for this node's work.
Alternatively, if a single node scales up and handles many online prediction requests within a 10 minute-period before shutting down, you are also charged for 10 node minutes.
You can use manual scaling to control exactly how many nodes run for a certain amount of time. However, if a node runs for less than 10 minutes you are still charged as if it ran for 10 minutes.
Learn more about node allocation and scaling.
Example of a prediction calculation
A real-estate company in an Americas region runs a weekly prediction of
housing values in areas it serves. In one month, it run predictions for
four weeks in batches of 3920, 4277, 3849, and 3961. Jobs are
limited to one node and each instance takes an average of 0.72
seconds of processing.
First calculate the length of time that each job ran:
3920 instances * (0.72 seconds / 1 instance) * (1 minute / 60 seconds) = 47.04 minutes 4277 instances * (0.72 seconds / 1 instance) * (1 minute / 60 seconds) = 51.324 minutes 3849 instances * (0.72 seconds / 1 instance) * (1 minute / 60 seconds) = 46.188 minutes 3961 instances * (0.72 seconds / 1 instance) * (1 minute / 60 seconds) = 47.532 minutes
Each job ran for more than ten minutes, so it is charged for each minute of processing:
($0.0791 / 1 node hour) * (1 hour / 60 minutes) * 48 minutes * 1 node = $0.06328 ($0.0791 / 1 node hour) * (1 hour / 60 minutes) * 52 minutes * 1 node = $0.06855 ($0.0791 / 1 node hour) * (1 hour / 60 minutes) * 47 minutes * 1 node = $0.06196 ($0.0791 / 1 node hour) * (1 hour / 60 minutes) * 48 minutes * 1 node = $0.06328
The total charge for the month is $0.26.
This example assumed jobs ran on a single node and took a consistent amount of time per input instance. In real usage, make sure to account for multiple nodes and use the actual amount of time each node spends running for your calculations.
Note about AI Platform Prediction charges for AI Explanations
AI Explanations comes at no extra charge to AI Platform Prediction prices. However, explanations take longer to process than normal predictions, so heavy usage of AI Explanations along with auto-scaling could result in more nodes being started, which would increase AI Platform Prediction charges.
Required use of Cloud Storage
In addition to the costs described in this document, you are required to store data and program files in Cloud Storage buckets during the AI Platform Prediction lifecycle. This storage is subject to the Cloud Storage pricing policy.
Required use of Cloud Storage includes:
Staging your model files when you are ready to deploy a model version.
Storing your input data for batch prediction.
Storing the output of your batch prediction jobs. AI Platform Prediction does not require long-term storage of these items. You can remove the files as soon as the operation is complete.
Free operations for managing your resources
The resource management operations provided by AI Platform Prediction are available free of charge. The AI Platform Prediction quota policy does limit some of these operations.
| Resource | Free operations |
|---|---|
| models | create, get, list, delete |
| versions | create, get, list, delete, setDefault |
| jobs | get, list, cancel |
| operations | get, list, cancel, delete |