This topic provides an overview of the billing methods, overdue payment policies, and frequently asked questions for Container Service for Kubernetes (ACK) Edge clusters.
Billing
Cluster type | Cluster management fee | Node management fee | Other cloud resource fees |
ACK Edge Pro cluster |
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ACK Edge Basic cluster |
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The following billing examples are for reference only. The actual fees are determined by the prices displayed on the product purchase page in the console.
1. Cluster management fee
ACK Edge integrates Alibaba Cloud's capabilities in virtualization, storage, networking, and security to simplify cluster O&M, letting you focus on developing and managing containerized applications. For this reason, a cluster management fee is charged for each ACK Edge Pro cluster.
Billing method | Price |
Pay-as-you-go | USD 0.090/hour per cluster |
2. Node management fee
ACK Edge supports a wide range of heterogeneous edge resources, such as on-premises data centers, Edge Node Service (ENS) instances, Internet of Things (IoT) devices, and nodes that use the x86 or ARM architecture. ACK Edge also supports hybrid scheduling of heterogeneous resources. Therefore, a management fee is charged for any non-Elastic Compute Service (ECS) nodes.
The fee is calculated based on the total number of vCPUs of your non-ECS nodes. For example, if your cluster has three nodes with 4 vCPUs and 8 GB of memory (one ECS instance and two ENS instances or on-premises nodes), the daily node management fee would be:
CNY 0.2/vCPU/day × 2 nodes × 4 vCPUs/node = CNY 1.6/day
USD 0.029/vCPU/day × 2 nodes × 4 vCPUs/node = USD 0.232/day
If a node is used for less than one day, the usage is rounded up to a full day.
By default, node management fees are charged on a pay-as-you-go basis. You can also purchase a resource plan to offset the fees.
Billing method | Price |
Pay-as-you-go | USD 0.029/vCPU/day |
Resource plan
After purchasing an ACK Edge resource plan, follow these steps to query the usage and set alerts for the remaining quota.
Log on to the Expenses and Costs console.
NoteThe following steps are based on the new console.
In the left navigation pane, select .
Set Resource Type to Resource Packages. In the resource package list, set the Resource Plan Type filter to ACK Edge Resource Plan.
NoteClick the
icon in the upper-right corner of the list to customize the displayed columns. Click the 
icon to export the list as a CSV file.Perform the following operations as needed:
Query overall usage
On the Instances tab, find the ACK Edge resource plan you want to manage and click Details in the Actions column.
In the dialog box that appears, view the information and usage of the ACK Edge resource plan, including the expiration time, remaining quota, and instance deduction details.
View usage details
Select the Details tab.
Set the search criteria and click Search.
View the usage details of the ACK Edge resource plan, including the deducted amount, the ID of the cluster to which the deduction was applied, and the deduction period.
Set alerts for remaining quota
Click Set Remaining Quota Alert in the upper-right corner of the page.
In the dialog box that appears, find the ACK Edge resource plan, enable alerts, set a threshold percentage, and click OK.
Cloud service fees
When using other Alibaba Cloud services with an ACK Edge cluster, you are billed for these services according to their own billing rules.
Cloud service | Required? | Description | Subscription | Resource plan | Billing |
Yes | Provides cloud-based nodes for an ACK Edge cluster. | Supported | Not supported | ||
No | Adds edge nodes to an ACK Edge cluster. | Supported | Not supported | ||
Yes | Provides a network environment and routing rules for a cluster. | Not supported | Not supported | ||
Yes | Creates a load balancer for an ACK Edge cluster. | Not supported | Not supported | ||
Yes | Implements auto scaling for an ACK Edge cluster. | Not supported | Not supported | ||
No but recommended | Provides secure hosting and full lifecycle management of cloud-native assets. | Supported Note Container Registry Enterprise Edition instances support only the subscription billing method. See Billing of Container Registry Enterprise Edition instances. | Not supported | ||
No but recommended | Enables communication between cloud resources and the Internet. | Not supported | Not supported | ||
No but recommended | Deploys clusters. | Not supported | Not supported | ||
No but recommended | Provides unified traffic management for applications in multiple clusters based on a Service Mesh. | Not supported | Supported | ||
No but recommended | Collects and retrieves logs of cluster components and applications. | Not supported | Supported Note Purchase a resource plan as needed. For more information, see Purchase resource plans. | ||
No but recommended | Monitors the running status of cluster nodes and applications. | Not supported | Supported | ||
No but recommended | Monitors and triggers alerts for clusters. | Supported Note For more information, see Billing overview. | Not supported | ||
Optional | Enables Internet access and allows clusters to pull images from the Internet. | Not supported | Supported Note Purchase a resource plan as needed. For more information, see NAT resource plans. | ||
Optional | Monitors security events and alerts for cluster applications at runtime. | Not supported | Not supported | ||
Optional | Provides file storage for cluster applications based on NAS. | Not supported | Supported Note Purchase a resource plan as needed. For more information, see Purchase resource plans. | Billing of General-purpose NAS file systems and Billing of Extreme NAS file systems | |
Optional | Provides object storage for cluster application data based on OSS. | Not supported | Supported Note Purchase a resource plan as needed. For more information, see Purchase resource plans. | ||
Optional | Manages application keys for clusters and enables at-rest encryption of keys for Pro clusters. | Not supported | Not supported | ||
Optional | Provides backup, disaster recovery, and policy-based data archiving. | Supported | Supported Note Purchase a resource plan as needed. For more information, see Purchase resource plans. | ||
Optional | Builds private network communication channels between VPCs across regions, and between VPCs and on-premises data centers. | Supported Note Bandwidth plans support the subscription billing method. | Bandwidth plans are supported. Note Purchase a resource plan as needed. For more information, see Manage bandwidth plan renewals and upgrades/downgrades. |
Overdue payments
If your account balance is insufficient to pay your bill, your ACK Edge cluster is considered overdue. You will no longer be able to access the API server of the cluster, but the workloads on the nodes can still run. If the payment is overdue for more than 15 days, Alibaba Cloud suspends the service. The associated nodes are removed from your cluster but are not released. Your ACK Edge cluster and its container instances are deleted. Container instances that are released because the ACK Edge cluster is deleted cannot be restored.
Refund policy
The pay-as-you-go billing method does not support refunds.
Billing cycle and invoices
ACK Edge fees are billed daily. An invoice for the previous day's usage is typically generated and charged to your account within 8 to 10 hours after the end of the billing period. For instructions on how to view your bills, see Query bills.
FAQ
Why did my daily bill suddenly increase or decrease?
Your bill is calculated based on the total number of non-ECS vCPUs managed by the cluster. If you scale your nodes up or down, the change will be reflected in the next day's bill.
If you do not remove a node from the ACK console, such as by running the
kubectl delete nodecommand to remove a node, the removed node may still be billed on the day of removal. Therefore, always remove nodes from the ACK console.
I deleted my ACK Edge cluster yesterday. Why was I still charged today?
The management fees for an ACK Edge cluster are billed daily from 00:00:00 to 23:59:59, and the fees are charged on the following day. If you deleted an ACK Edge cluster yesterday, the fees for yesterday were already recorded by the billing system. Therefore, a bill is generated and charged today. You will not receive any further bills for the deleted cluster.
How do I stop being billed for an ACK Edge cluster?
To stop all charges, you must delete all of your ACK Edge clusters in all regions. Before deleting a cluster, ensure you have backed up any necessary applications and data.
Are nodes in a NotReady state still billed?
Yes. The node management fee applies to all non-ECS nodes managed by the cluster, regardless of their Ready or NotReady status. To stop being billed for a node, remove it from the cluster via the ACK console.