Dear Alibaba Cloud customer,

To improve the billing experience and increase payment success rates, Alibaba Cloud will begin updating the billing rules for pay-as-you-go products on the International Website (alibabacloud.com) starting July 9, 2026. The details are as follows:

I. What's changing

We are introducing a tiered billing mechanism. The system will automatically assign your billing tier based on your payment history:

• USD 100 — Default tier for new users
• USD 500 — Auto-upgrade after one successful payment at the USD 100 tier
• USD 1,000 — Auto-upgrade after one successful payment at the USD 500 tier

Key rules:

1. Usage-based billing triggers: When your cumulative spending reaches your current tier amount, the system automatically triggers a billing charge.
2. Automatic tier upgrades: After a full-amount payment is completed at your current tier, you are automatically upgraded to the next tier. The upgrade is permanent and requires no manual action.
3. End-of-month settlement: If your monthly spending does not reach the tier amount, any outstanding balance is automatically settled on the 1st of the following month.
4. Payment method limit adjustment: The actual billing trigger amount is the lesser of your billing tier and the reference limit of your default payment method.

II. Scope

• Applicable site: Alibaba Cloud International Website (alibabacloud.com)
• Applicable users: Non-credit-controlled users
• Applicable products: Pay-as-you-go products (excluding pay-as-you-go cloud communication products)

III. Initial tier assignment for existing users

• Users with a successful payment history: Automatically matched to the corresponding tier based on the highest historical payment amount (up to USD 1,000).
• Users without a successful payment history: Initialized at the USD 100 tier.

IV. Self-service lookup

You can view your current billing tier, change history, and detailed rules on the Expenses and Costs > Billing Account page in the console.

V. Effective date

This update is expected to take effect in a phased rollout starting July 9, 2026. The new rules will be applied automatically—no action is required on your part.

VI. Special note: Payment method limit adjustment

To ensure billing charges are processed successfully, the system adjusts the actual billing trigger amount based on the reference limit of your default payment method:

Actual billing trigger amount = min(current billing tier, reference limit of default payment method)

Reference limits by payment method (used for tier calculation):

• Credit Card: USD 1,000
• PayPal: USD 1,000
• Alipay CN: USD 1,000
• Google Pay, Apple Pay: USD 1,000
• DANA: USD 100
• Other: USD 1,000

Note: The "reference limit" listed above is the upper-bound parameter the system uses to calculate the pay-as-you-go billing trigger amount—it is not the actual payment limit of each payment method. For example, a credit card's actual payment capacity may be far higher than USD 1,000, but the system caps the billing trigger calculation at USD 1,000. This limit does not affect the actual payment capacity of any single transaction.

Examples（If the reference limit of your default payment method is low, billing may be triggered more frequently. We recommend checking your default payment method in the console and selecting one with a higher limit.）

• Tier USD 500 + Credit Card (reference limit USD 1,000) → Actual billing trigger amount = USD 500
• Tier USD 500 + DANA (reference limit USD 100) → Actual billing trigger amount = USD 100
• Tier USD 1,000 + no default payment method configured (default reference limit USD 1,000) → Actual billing trigger amount = USD 1,000

Thank you for your continued trust and support.