Cheap Cloud Load Generation
All versions of WPLoadTester can generate load either from computers you provide, or you can automatically generate load from our Amazon EC2-based load engines with zero configuration. At the click of a button you can configure enough computers to generate up to a million simulated users, automatically billed directly to your Amazon EC2 account.
Example Cloud Prices
Cloud load testing is a small additional charge to the licensing cost of WPLoadTester™. WPLoadTester defaults to m5.large instances (2 vCPU, 8 GiB RAM, on-demand ~$0.096/hour in us-east-1), each generating around 500 concurrent HTTP virtual users on typical API/web test cases. Per-instance capacity depends on the test case — payload size, think-time, and response size all matter — so 500 VU is a conservative baseline. Heavy workloads may want m5.xlarge; lighter workloads will get more. EC2 charges bill directly to your AWS account with no markup from us.
| Simultaneous HTTP Virtual Users |
m5.large Instances | Cloud Cost/Hour (on-demand, us-east-1) |
|---|---|---|
| 500 | 1 |
$0.10 |
| 1,000 | 2 |
$0.19 |
| 5,000 | 10 |
$0.96 |
| 10,000 | 20 |
$1.92 |
| 25,000 | 50 |
$4.80 |
| 50,000 | 100 |
$9.60 |
| 100,000 | 200 |
$19.20 |
| 500,000 | 1,000 |
$96 |
| 1,000,000 | 2,000 |
$192 |
Pricing reflects AWS on-demand m5.large rates in us-east-1 as of April 2026. Reserved-instance and Spot pricing, or existing AWS enterprise discounts, reduce the hourly cost further. Real-browser load testing returns in WPLoadTester 7.1 and uses larger instance types at proportionally higher cost.
Getting Started
To get started generating load from outside of your network first signup for the Amazon EC2 service, and then follow this tutorial to configure WPLoadTester™.