Pricing and cost control

This subsection summarises the Nuvolos pricing model in one place and lists the practical levers for keeping costs under control.

Pricing model at a glance

• The Nuvolos subscription is a yearly contract that allocates seats, NCU hours, and high-performance storage. Pricing is custom to your use case rather than packaged into tiers.

• Credits extend the subscription with on-demand resources: credit-based Application sizes, GPUs, Large File Storage, database computation overage, professional services, and any usage beyond NCU or storage limits.

• Resource pools track the budget against which mapped resources account their usage. A single subscription can have multiple pools for different cost centres or budgets.

For details on each part, see Subscription and Credits and Resource pools and budgets.

Current pricing

For up-to-date per-Credit rates, overage charges, credit-based Application size prices, Large File Storage rates, and resting storage rates, see the Nuvolos service prices page.

Cost control

You can exercise cost control in various ways. The suggestions below are ordered from simplest to most impactful.

Monitor usage regularly

Use the resource monitoring dashboard to track NCU consumption, storage footprint, and credit spend. Resource pool managers can drill down to the organisation and space level to identify where resources are being used.

• NCU consumption - review the NCU limits and capacities tile for a real-time view of your compute allocation.

• Storage consumption - review the file system limits and capacities tile to see how much of your storage allocation is in use.

Right-size applications

Applications do not need to run at their maximum size. Change the application size to match the workload:

• Use a smaller included size (e.g. 1–2 NCUs) for editing, light analysis, or teaching.

• Scale up to larger included or credit-based sizes only when running demanding computations.

• Size changes take effect on the next application restart - there is no cost while the application is stopped.

Stop idle applications

Applications that are not in use still consume NCUs or credits. Nuvolos automatically stops inactive applications, but you can also stop them manually to free resources sooner.

Rest unused spaces

If a course has ended or a project is paused, rest the space to move its data to more affordable storage. This can significantly reduce your file system footprint and avoid storage overage charges. When you need the data again, wake the space with a single click.

Manage storage proactively

Use the quota usage tool inside a space to identify large files, old snapshots, or unused application libraries that can be cleaned up. Deleting unnecessary snapshots is often the fastest way to reclaim space.

Align subscriptions with the academic calendar

For academic institutional use cases, NCU availability is tailored to the academic year. This means NCUs allocated to you will be available for a certain number of hours within the academic year, excluding the summer break period. This lowers the cost of the subscription, ensuring you do not pay for resource availability during a period when the resources are likely to go unused. For details on time constraints on NCU availability, refer to our documentation on NCU architecture.

What happens when limits are exceeded

Each subscription dimension has its own overage behavior. Operations continue uninterrupted as long as the Credit balance is positive; overage is automatically billed against Credits.

NCU overage

Once you reach the NCU limit or it expires, Included-size Applications continue to function - they can still start, and running Applications continue without interruption - as long as you maintain a positive Credit balance. New Application starts during overage require a positive Credit balance. Two ways to resolve sustained NCU overage:

• Purchase more NCU capacity - contact your account manager to add NCU hours to the subscription.

• Use Credits - overage is automatically billed against Credits at the rate published on the prices page.

File system overage

Once total storage exceeds the file system limit, daily Credit deductions begin automatically. Each day, you are charged for the storage above the limit. To resolve:

• Free up storage - resource pool managers can identify storage-heavy Spaces via the dashboard and contact their administrators; space administrators can use the quota usage tool to find where storage is being used.

• Enable resting - activating the resting feature moves unused data to more affordable storage (see Administration › Space administration › Resting Spaces).

• Increase the subscription - if storage growth is sustained, expanding the subscription is more cost-effective than ongoing overage.

Resting storage overage

If you have a prepaid resting limit and exceed it, daily Credit deductions begin automatically - the same model as pay-as-you-go resting. To avoid sustained resting overage, delete old Spaces that are no longer needed.

Where to go next

• For monitoring procedures and dashboard navigation, see Administration › Resource monitoring.

• For the operational side of resting and HPC, see Administration › Space administration.

• For the conceptual model of compute and resources, see Concepts › The hierarchy and resource model.