Auto Scaling is free of charge. However, you must pay for the resources of other Alibaba Cloud services used in Auto Scaling, such as Elastic Compute Service (ECS), Elastic Container Instance, Server Load Balancer (SLB), and ApsaraDB RDS.

ECS

Auto Scaling manages the following types of ECS instances:

  • Existing ECS instances that are manually added to a scaling group. The subscription, pay-as-you-go, and preemptible instance billing methods are supported.
  • ECS instances that are automatically created during scale-out activities. Only the pay-as-you-go and preemptible instance billing methods are supported.

The following table describes the ECS resources for which you must pay. ① specifies a more cost-effective billing method that reduces the costs of pay-as-you-go resources. You can buy pay-as-you-go resources based on your business requirements. For more information, see ECS billing overview.

Resource type Description Billing method References
Computing resource (vCPUs and memory) You are charged based on the instance type. The instance type determines the number of vCPUs and the size of memory that you can consume.
  • Subscription
  • Pay-as-you-go
  • Pay-as-you-go and reserved instances①
  • Pay-as-you-go and savings plans①
  • Preemptible instances①
Image Image fees are determined based on the image type and your usage.
  • Subscription
  • Pay-as-you-go
  • Pay-as-you-go and reserved instances①
Disk Disk fees are determined based on the disk capacity and usage duration.
  • Subscription
  • Pay-as-you-go
  • Pay-as-you-go and storage capacity units (SCUs)①
  • Pay-as-you-go and savings plans①
Snapshot Snapshot fees are determined based on the snapshot size and storage duration.
  • Pay-as-you-go
  • Pay-as-you-go and SCUs①
Public bandwidth If you use a public IP address to access the Internet, you are charged only for the outbound public bandwidth.
  • Pay-by-bandwidth
  • Pay-by-traffic
  • Pay-by-bandwidth and savings plans①
  • Pay-by-traffic and data transfer plans①

The following table describes the billing methods of ECS instances in different states. For more information, see Economical mode.

Billing method Instance status ECS resources
Subscription Running You are charged for ECS resources such as images, disks, public bandwidth, and snapshots based on their individual billing methods.
Stopped You are charged for ECS resources such as images, disks, public bandwidth, and snapshots based on their individual billing methods.
Pay-as-you-go (including preemptible instances) Running You are charged for ECS resources such as images, disks, public bandwidth, and snapshots based on their individual billing methods.
Stopped
  • If the Economical Mode feature is disabled, you are charged for ECS resources such as images, disks, public bandwidth, and snapshots based on their individual billing methods.
  • If the Economical Mode feature is enabled, you are charged for the following ECS resources:
    • Image: Images are retained. The billing for paid images continues.
    • Disk: Disks are retained, and the billing continues.
    • Public bandwidth:
      • If ECS instances are assigned public IP addresses, the IP addresses are released, and you are no longer charged for the public bandwidth.
      • If ECS instances are associated with elastic IP addresses (EIPs), the EIPs remain unchanged. You are charged for the EIPs until the instances are stopped.
      Note After ECS instances are stopped, the private IP addresses of the instances remain unchanged.
    • Snapshot: Snapshots are retained, and the billing continues.

Elastic Container Instance

The following table describes the Elastic Container Instance resources that you must pay.

Resource type Description References
Elastic container instance You are charged for the vCPUs and memory that you consume. Billing
Image cache If you use the image cache feature, you are charged for the creation and usage of image caches.
Network If your elastic container instances require Internet access, you must configure EIPs or NAT gateways for the elastic container instances. You are charged for the network resources that you consume.
Storage If you need to add temporary storage space to your elastic container instances or persistently store data on your elastic container instances, you can attach disks and mount a NAS file system to your elastic container instances. You are charged for the storage resources that you consume.

Other Alibaba Cloud services

Auto Scaling does not create the resources that are described in the following table. Auto Scaling associates scaling groups with these resources during your usage. Before you use the resources, you must create and pay for them in the consoles of other Alibaba Cloud services or by calling API operations of other Alibaba Cloud services.

Alibaba Cloud service Description References
SLB If you want to associate a scaling group with SLB instances, you must first create and pay for the SLB instances. Pay-as-you-go
ApsaraDB RDS If you want to associate a scaling group with ApsaraDB RDS instances, you must first create and pay for the ApsaraDB RDS instances. Billable items, billing methods, and pricing