Compared with manual renewal, auto-renewal can help you save management costs and prevents the services of ECS instances from being interrupted if you fail to renew instances. This topic describes how to enable the auto-renewal feature.

Background information

After auto-renewal is enabled for an ECS instance, the instance is automatically renewed before it expires.
  • Alibaba Cloud sends an email reminder on the 7th day before the instance expires (T-7).
  • Alibaba Cloud deducts the payment for the next billing cycle from your bank card, PayPal, or Paytm (India) account on the 3rd day before the instance expires (T-3). If the payment deduction fails, Alibaba Cloud will attempt to deduct the payment again up to five times until the deduction is successful, on the following days: the 1st day before the instance expires (T-1), the expiration day (T), the 7th day after the instance expires (T+6), and the 15th day after the instance expires (T+14).
    • At 08:00:00 (UTC+8) on the deduction day, Alibaba Cloud performs auto renewal on all the ECS instances that are set to expire in succession. This causes the actual renewal time to be between 08:00:00 (UTC+8) and 18:00:00 (UTC+8).
    • If the payment is deducted before T+14, the instance will start the next billing cycle from the day the instance is set to expire.
    • Otherwise, the instance will be in the expired state from T+15. Instances in the expired state cannot be logged on to or remotely connected to. If the instance has expired, you can only manually renew the instance. If the instance is not manually renewed within 15 days after it enters the expired state, the instance will be released and its data will be permanently lost. For more information, see Manual renewal.
    • If the payment for auto renewal fails, Alibaba Cloud will send you an email reminder. Check whether you have received any reminder to avoid unexpected expiration of instances.
    • If manual renewal has been completed before auto renewal, auto renewal will take effect starting from the next billing cycle.

For more information about the fund deduction process of auto-renewal, see Renewal overview.

Enable auto-renewal on the Create Instance page

You can enable auto-renewal on the Create Instance page, as shown in the following figure. For more information about how to create an ECS instance, see Create an instance by using the provided wizard.

Enable auto-renewal on the Instances page

On the Instances page, you can enable auto-renewal for one or more ECS instances or change the renewal period.

  1. Log on to the ECS console.
  2. In the left-side navigation pane, choose Instances & Images > Instances.
  3. In the top navigation bar, select a region.
  4. Select a method to enable auto-renewal.
    • Enable auto-renewal for one ECS instance: Find the instance and choose More > Instance Settings > Configure Auto Renewal in the Actions column.
    • Enable auto-renewal for one or more ECS instances: Select the instances. At the bottom of the instances list, choose More > Instance Settings > Configure Auto Renewal.
  5. Turn on the Auto Renewal switch, select the renewal period, and then click OK.

Enable auto-renewal on the Renew page

On the Renew page, you can enable auto-renewal for one or more ECS instances or change the renewal period.

  1. Log on to the ECS console.
  2. In the top navigation bar, choose Billing > Renew.
  3. In the left-side navigation pane, click Elastic Compute Service.
  4. Click the Manually Renew tab.
  5. Select a method to enable auto-renewal.
    • Enable auto-renewal for one ECS instance: Find the instance and click Enable Auto-Renew in the Actions column.
    • Enable auto-renewal for one or more ECS instances: Select the instances. At the bottom of the instances list, click Enable Auto-Renew.
  6. Select the auto-renewal period and click Enable Auto-Renew.
    Click the Auto-Renew tab. The previously selected instances are displayed in the list, indicating that auto-renewal has been enabled.