When you create clusters, you do not need to make a payment first. You are charged for the computing and storage resources that you use. If you do not use compute plans or storage plans, you are billed for the usage of compute nodes and storage resources by hour. The fees are deducted from your account balance on an hourly basis.

Scenarios

If your server workloads are light, change infrequently, and fluctuate little, we recommend that you purchase pay-as-you-go clusters. Fees are deducted from your account based on the compute nodes that you use.

Combination with storage plans

The storage capacity of PolarDB is automatically scaled based on the amount of stored data. You do not need to manually specify the storage capacity. Fees are charged only for the used storage. The storage of each PolarDB cluster is charged based on the data volume and retention period. If you require a larger storage capacity, such as 1,000 GB or more, we recommend that you purchase storage plans to reduce costs.

A storage plan is a subscription-based resource plan provided by PolarDB. You can use storage plans to offset storage fees and fees for level-1 backups that exceed the free quota. Storage plans can help you reduce costs for storage resources and level-1 backups. The larger the volume of the storage plan (capacity and duration), the more costs you save.

For example, a monthly storage plan provides 10%-45% savings when compared with the price of a comparable pay-as-you-go cluster. The longer the duration of the plan, the more savings you get. If you purchase annual storage plans, you can save an additional 15% off the monthly price.

Note
  • Storage plans can be used by all PolarDB clusters in the regions that are specified by the Plan Type parameter. You can select Chinese Mainland or Outside Chinese Mainland.
  • If the capacity of your storage plan is insufficient, you can purchase an additional storage plan or upgrade the storage plan. However, storage plans cannot be downgraded.
  • If the amount of used storage exceeds the capacity of your storage plan, you are charged for the additional storage resources based on the pay-as-you-go billing method.

    For example, assume that you have created three PolarDB clusters that each requires 400 GB of storage. If you purchase a storage plan of 1,000 GB and these clusters share the storage plan, the storage resources used in excess of 200 GB are billed on a pay-as-you-go basis. For more information, see View the database storage usage.

Purchase pay-as-you-go clusters