How ACK managed and dedicated clusters are billed - Container Service for Kubernetes

ACK managed and dedicated clusters incur cluster management fees, cloud resource costs, and Lingjun node management fees, depending on cluster type.

Cluster type	Cluster management fees	Cloud resource fees	Lingjun node management fees
ACK managed Pro cluster	Applies	Applies	Applies only when a Lingjun node pool is configured
ACK managed Basic cluster	Not applicable	Applies	Not applicable
ACK dedicated cluster	Not applicable	Applies	Not applicable

Cluster management fees

Only ACK managed Pro clusters incur cluster management fees, calculated per cluster per hour.

Billing method

Pay-as-you-go: USD 0.09 per cluster per hour. Prices may vary by region. Your actual bill reflects the final charge.

Billing cycle

Billing is hourly, aligned to the top of each hour (for example, 10:00–11:00). The first billing cycle after cluster creation and the last cycle before cluster release are not charged. Bills appear 10–30 minutes after the end of each cycle.

See Billing cycle for cluster management fees.

Important

Cluster management fees apply when the cluster is in the Running, Upgrading, Draining, Removing, or Configuring state.

Cloud resource fees

ACK clusters use other Alibaba Cloud services, each billed separately. See Cloud resource costs.

Resource	Purpose	Billing details
Elastic Compute Service (ECS)	Cluster nodes. Managed clusters charge for worker nodes only; dedicated clusters charge for both master and worker nodes.	ECS billing overview
Server Load Balancer (SLB)	The API server requires a Classic Load Balancer (CLB) instance — deleting it makes the cluster unavailable. CLB or Network Load Balancer (NLB) handles LoadBalancer-type Services. An Application Load Balancer (ALB) instance handles ALB Ingress.	CLB billing, NLB billing, ALB billing
NAT Gateway	Internet access for the cluster, such as pulling public container images	NAT Gateway billing
Elastic IP Address (EIP)	Public network access for the API server or NAT gateway	EIP billing overview
Storage	Cloud disks, File Storage NAS, and Object Storage Service (OSS) for persistent storage	Cloud disk billing, NAS billing, OSS billing
Observability	Simple Log Service (SLS) for log collection. Managed Service for Prometheus for cluster monitoring.	SLS billing, Container monitoring billing
Container Registry	Container image management and distribution	ACR billing

The table above covers common services. Actual charges depend on the services you enable and use. Use the pricing calculator to estimate costs.

View billing details

Use Cost Insights to view cluster costs and find savings. For bill details, go to Expenses and Costs. See Query bills.

Overdue payments

Impact of overdue payments

An account is considered overdue when the available balance — including the Alibaba Cloud account balance and vouchers — falls below the amount due.

Impact varies by cluster type.

Time since overdue	ACK managed Pro cluster	ACK managed Basic cluster and ACK dedicated cluster
Day 0–15	Cluster enters the Inactive state. The API server is inaccessible. Pay-as-you-go cloud resources may be stopped or released.	Cluster status is unchanged. Pay-as-you-go cloud resources may be stopped or released.
After 15 days	Cluster is deleted.	Cluster is deleted.

To recharge your account and settle overdue bills, go to Expenses and Costs. See Overdue payments.

Unsubscribing and refunds

To stop billing, delete the cluster and its associated cloud resources.

Cluster management fees: Not refunded (charged based on actual usage).
Cloud resource fees: Refund policies vary by service. See the billing documentation for each service.

See Unsubscription and refund policies.

Container Service for Kubernetes:Billing for ACK managed and dedicated clusters