NAT Gateway:NAT Gateway billing

Billing methods

Both Internet NAT gateways and VPC NAT gateways support these billing methods:

NAT Gateway is a post-paid service billed on a pay-as-you-go basis. Purchasing a resource plan deducts usage from the plan but does not change the payment type. Single-AZ disaster recovery instances support only pay-as-you-go billing, do not support subscription, and cannot use resource plans.

• Pay-as-you-go: Bills are generated each billing cycle based on actual usage, and fees are deducted from your account.

• Resource Plan: Purchase a NAT Gateway resource plan in advance. Usage is deducted from the resource plan first during fee settlement.

  • Resource plans offer discounts compared to pay-as-you-go billing.

  • Excess usage is automatically billed on a pay-as-you-go basis.

Use the NAT CU Estimator to estimate the CU count for your workload.

Billing cycle

Both Internet NAT gateways and VPC NAT gateways are billed hourly based on actual usage.

• Usage less than one hour in a billing cycle is billed as one hour.

• Bills are typically generated one hour after the cycle ends. Actual timing is determined by the system.

For example, if you purchase a NAT gateway at 09:10:00 and release it at 10:50:00 on the same day, the usage duration is two hours.

• The period from 09:00:00 to 10:00:00 is one billing cycle. A bill is generated after 10:00:00, and the corresponding fees are deducted from your account.

• The period from 10:00:00 to 11:00:00 is another billing cycle. A bill is generated after 11:00:00, and the corresponding fees are deducted from your account.

Billable items and pricing

Instance fee = Unit price of a NAT gateway (USD/hour) × Usage duration (hours)

CU fee per hour = CU unit price (USD/CU) × Number of CUs for processed traffic in the hour
Number of CUs for processed traffic in the hour = Total processed traffic / 1 GB

Billing example

Assume you create two cross-AZ NAT Gateway instances in Germany (Frankfurt) at 08:10:00 on June 13, 2025, and delete them at 08:50:00 the same day.

Traffic data in this example is for illustration only. Actual fees are based on system-recorded metrics.

View bills and usage

On the Billing Management - Billing Details page, set Product Name to NAT Gateway to view usage and billing details.

Stop billing

Billing stops automatically when you delete a NAT gateway.

• To stop EIP billing for an Internet NAT gateway used for Internet access, you must release the EIP. Only pay-as-you-go EIPs can be released. Subscription EIPs are released after they expire.

• Detaching an EIP from an Internet NAT gateway does not stop billing for either the EIP or the NAT gateway.

Overdue payments and top-ups

If your account balance (cash, vouchers, coupons, and pre-authorizations) is insufficient to pay an outstanding bill and your resource plans do not cover all fees, your account enters overdue status.

The system checks whether your account balance can cover the next three billing cycles based on average NAT Gateway bills in the last 24 hours. If insufficient, you receive a text message or email notification.

• Your NAT gateway continues to provide service for 15 days after a payment becomes overdue.

• If you do not pay within 15 days, the NAT gateway is stopped. No operations can be performed on it in this state.

• If you top up and pay the overdue amount within 15 days after the gateway is stopped, it is automatically re-enabled.

• If the gateway remains stopped for 15 days without payment, it is automatically deleted. You receive an email notification one day before deletion. After deletion, all configurations and data are permanently erased.

FAQ