Renewal policy - ApsaraDB RDS - Alibaba Cloud Documentation Center

When your subscription ApsaraDB RDS instance expires, you may no longer be able to access the instance. If you want to continue using your instance, you must renew its subscription. Otherwise, instance resources such as CPU cores, memory, and disks are released, and your data will be permanently deleted. Pay-as-you-go instances do not expire and thus do not require renewal.

Warning Alibaba Cloud sends notifications to you before your subscription expires. To avoid business interruptions, we recommend that you renew your subscription at your earliest opportunity.

Renewal methods

You can manually renew or enable auto-renewal for your RDS instance. The cost of renewing a subscription is the same as purchasing a new subscription.

Note The price of an instance varies based on its configurations, such as the region, instance type, and storage capacity. For more information, visit the ApsaraDB RDS buy page.

Enable auto-renewal for an RDS instance

You can enable the auto-renewal feature to prevent business interruptions caused by instance expiration. For more information, see Enable auto-renewal for an ApsaraDB RDS for MySQL instance.

If you enable auto-renewal for your RDS instance, the system deducts the renewal fee at 08:00 on two days before the RDS instance expires. If this fails, the system attempts to deduct the renewal fee once every day for the remaining subscription duration until the deduction succeeds. Make sure you have sufficient balance in your Alibaba Cloud account to ensure that auto-renewal is successful.

For example, auto-renewal is enabled for an RDS subscription that expires on January 9, 2023.

The system attempts to deduct the renewal fee at 08:00 beginning on January 07, 2023 until January 09, 2023. If any of the deductions is successful, the auto-renewal process is complete.
First attempt: January 07, 2023, 08:00. If the deduction succeeds, the auto-renewal process is complete. Otherwise, the system will attempt again on January 08, 2023.
Second attempt: January 08, 2023, 08:00. If the deduction succeeds, the auto-renewal process is complete. Otherwise, the system will attempt again on January 09, 2023.
Last attempt: January 09, 2023, 08:00. If the deduction succeeds, the auto-renewal process is complete. Otherwise, the instance expires at 24:00 the same day. For more information about post-expiration instance states, see Post-expiration instance states.

Important We recommend that you follow up on the progress of the deduction and manually renew your RDS instance at your earliest opportunity if the deduction fails.

Manually renew an RDS subscription

When an RDS subscription expires, Alibaba Cloud retains your instance for a few days before it is released. You can manually renew your subscription within this period. After this period, the instance is released, and the data stored on it is permanently deleted. For more information, see Manually renew an ApsaraDB RDS for MySQL instance.

Post-expiration instance states


Post-expiration state	Operation
Day 1 to 7: The instance is locked and cannot be accessed. Day 8 to 15: The computing resources of the instance are released. However, the data backups of the instance are retained. Day 16: The data backups of the instance are deleted.	You can recover an RDS instance in the locked state by manually renewing the instance. When the renewal is complete, the instance recovers immediately. For more information, see Manually renew an ApsaraDB RDS for MySQL instance. Some RDS instances are moved to the recycle bin after they expire. A copy of their data is retained for a short period of time. Within this period, you can rebuild the RDS instance from the recycle bin. Data is automatically restored to the new RDS instance. Note For more information about the recycle bin feature for each database engine, see the following topics: Manage ApsaraDB RDS for MySQL instances in the recycle bin Manage ApsaraDB RDS for PostgreSQL instances in the recycle bin Manage ApsaraDB RDS for SQL Server instances in the recycle bin Manage ApsaraDB RDS for MariaDB instances that are in the recycle bin Important Data that has been deleted cannot be restored.

Note When your RDS instance is released, the backup files of the instance are retained in the following scenarios:

The RDS instance runs MySQL, PostgreSQL, or SQL Server, and the cross-region backup retention period has not ended. The backup files are retained until the cross-region backup retention period ends. For more information, see Enable cross-region backups for an ApsaraDB RDS for MySQL instance.
The RDS instance runs MySQL, and you have determined to retain the backup files of the RDS instance after the RDS instance is released. For more information, see Enable the automatic backup feature for an ApsaraDB RDS for MySQL instance.