~$16-27/mo each, plus capacity units

Idle load balancer cost on AWS

Every Application and Network Load Balancer bills an hourly base rate plus capacity units, whether or not it serves traffic. Balancers left behind after a decommission are pure waste.

Why the waste happens

  • A service is decommissioned but its load balancer is never deleted, so the hourly charge continues.
  • Load balancers are created for a proof of concept or a blue/green cutover and then forgotten.
  • Target groups end up with no healthy targets after instances are terminated or scaled to zero.
  • Multiple balancers exist where one, with host or path routing, would serve every backend.

How to spot it

  • Load balancers with no registered or no healthy targets.
  • Balancers with near-zero request count or processed bytes over the last few weeks.
  • Target groups that are empty or permanently unhealthy.
  • Several balancers fronting the same application that could be consolidated.

The fix

  • Delete load balancers with no targets or no meaningful traffic.
  • Remove empty target groups left behind by deleted services.
  • Consolidate multiple balancers behind one, using host-based or path-based routing rules.
  • Add an alert on request count so a balancer that goes quiet is noticed before it bills for months.

Find every load balancer issue in one scan

Cloud Cost Analyzer detects load balancers with no targets and those with near-zero traffic, plus orphaned target groups, and estimates the monthly cost of each so you can retire them with confidence.

$ cca scan --provider aws

Read-only, runs in about 5 minutes. Free tier, no credit card.

Read the deep dive: Idle load balancers you forgot to delete

load balancer cost FAQ

How much does an idle load balancer cost?+

An Application or Network Load Balancer costs roughly $16 to $27 per month in base hourly charges alone, before capacity units. An idle balancer with no traffic still incurs the full base charge until you delete it.

How do I know if a load balancer is safe to delete?+

Check for no registered or no healthy targets and near-zero request count over a representative period. Cloud Cost Analyzer surfaces both signals so you can confirm a balancer is truly unused before removing it.

Can I consolidate multiple load balancers?+

Often yes. A single Application Load Balancer can front many services using host-based and path-based routing rules, replacing several balancers and their per-balancer base charges.

See what you are overpaying for

Point a read-only CLI at your account and get a ranked fix list with dollar amounts. Free tier, no credit card.