This topic describes the billing rules of ACK managed clusters and ACK dedicated clusters, including the billable items and billing methods.
Description
The billable items of ACK managed clusters and ACK dedicated clusters include cluster management and cloud resources. The following table describes the billable items of different cluster types:
Cluster type | Cluster management | Cloud resources |
ACK Pro cluster |
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ACK Basic cluster |
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ACK dedicated cluster |
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Billing example
After you configure the settings of the cluster, nodes, and components in the ACK console, you can view the billing configurations of the cluster. The following figure is an example.
The prices in the following figures are for reference only. The actual prices displayed in the console shall prevail.
Billing method switching
By default, you are charged a cluster management fee for ACK Pro clusters on a pay-as-you-go basis. You cannot change the billing method of the cluster management fee to subscription.
You can change the billing methods of other cloud resources in the corresponding consoles. You can read the documentation of a cloud service to check whether the service supports billing method switching. For more information about how to switch the billing method of an Elastic Compute Service (ECS) instance, see Change the billing method of an instance from subscription to pay-as-you-go and Change the billing method of an instance from pay-as-you-go to subscription.
When you change the billing method of an ECS instance from pay-as-you-go to subscription, do not select Switch to Subscription. Otherwise, workloads on the instance cannot be restarted. As a result, workloads on the instance may be affected. For more information, see Why do applications fail to restart after I change the billing method of a data disk mounted to an ECS instance from pay-as-you-go to subscription when I change the billing method of the ECS instance from pay-as-you-go to subscription?
When the system scales out a node pool, newly added ECS instances use the billing method of the node pool. If you want to change the billing method of a node pool, see Modify a node pool.
Cluster renewal
By default, ACK Pro clusters charge you a cluster management fee on a pay-as-you-go basis. Renewal is not required for ACK Pro clusters.
If your cluster uses a subscription resource, we recommend that you renew the resource in the console before the subscription period ends. This helps prevent your business from being affected by resource expiration. For more information about how to renew an ECS instance, see Renew a subscription instance.
View billing details
You can view the bills of cluster management fees and cloud resource fees on the Expenses and Costs page. For more information, see Query bills.
Overdue payments
If the sum of the balance and vouchers in your Alibaba Cloud account is less than the payable amount on a bill, an overdue payment is generated. Overdue payments may affect your business. We recommend that you top up your account and complete overdue payments at the earliest opportunity. For more information, see Overdue payments.
Unsubscription and refund policy
If you no longer need to use an ACK cluster, delete the cluster, release the cloud resources used by the cluster, and make sure that the billing of the cluster and cloud resources is stopped.
The cluster management fee is not refunded because it is charged on a pay-as-you-go basis.
For more information about the refund policies of other cloud services, refer to the billing documentation of the cloud services.
For more information, see Unsubscription and refund policies.
References
For more information about the billing FAQ, see FAQ about billing.
ACK provides the cost management suite, which offers a cloud cost governance solution to help you control IT spending based on FinOps. This solution allows you to allocate the costs of resources, improve resource utilization, and reduce resource costs to meet the business requirements in different scenarios. For more information, see Cost management suite overview.