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    Cloud Phone:Billing

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    Cloud Phone:Billing

    Last Updated:Mar 10, 2026

    This topic describes the billing items for Cloud Phone and the billing method for each item.

    Billing item overview

    Instance Edition

    Type

    Billing item

    Description

    Billing rule

    Basic resources (required)

    • Compute resources

    • Storage resources

    Resources required to run and use Cloud Phone, including vCPUs, memory, and Cloud Phone storage.

    Specifications and Pricing

    Value-added services (optional)

    Public NAT Gateway

    If the network type of your Cloud Phone instance group is VPC, a pay-as-you-go Internet NAT Gateway instance is automatically purchased when you enable Internet access for the network.

    NAT Gateway billing

    Elastic IP Address (EIP)

    If the network type of your Cloud Phone instance group is VPC, a pay-as-you-go Elastic IP Address instance is automatically purchased when you enable Internet access for the network.

    Billing overview

    Object Storage Service (OSS)

    To create a data backup for a cloud phone instance, the backup data will be stored in an OSS bucket.

    Billing overview

    Base Resources

    Supported Billing Methods

    Cloud Phone supports the following billing methods:

    • Subscription: A prepaid model where you pay in advance for a specific usage period.

    • Pay-as-you-go: A postpaid billing model where you use the service first and pay later.

      Note

      In pay-as-you-go mode, billing starts when the instance group is successfully created. It ends at the conclusion of the 4-hour billing period during which the instance group is released. If the instance becomes overdue during a billing period, billing stops immediately. It does not continue for the remainder of that 4-hour period. For more information about pay-as-you-go billing rules, see [Announcement] Change to Pay-as-you-go Billing Unit Duration.

      Important

      The running state of a Cloud Phone instance does not affect billing. Stopping a Cloud Phone instance does not stop billing.

    Specifications and Pricing

    Cloud Phone offers the following specifications. Select a specification based on your application’s payload requirements. You can also select a region based on your users’ locations and business needs.

    Instance edition

    Specification

    Regions in the Chinese mainland

    Regions in Hong Kong (China) and outside China

    Chinese name

    English name

    CPU/Memory/Storage

    Monthly subscription (USD/month)

    Pay-as-you-go (USD/hour)

    Monthly subscription (USD/month)

    Pay-as-you-go (USD/hour)

    Lightweight

    acp.basic.small

    2 vCPU/4 GiB/32 GiB

    9.9057

    0.0457

    15.3538

    0.0709

    General-purpose

    acp.std.small

    4 vCPU/4 GiB/32 GiB

    13.8679

    0.0579

    21.4953

    0.0898

    Balanced

    acp.std.medium

    3 vCPU/6 GiB/32 GiB

    14.9347

    0.0610

    23.1488

    0.0945

    Medium

    acp.std.large

    4 vCPU/8 GiB/32 GiB

    21.3353

    0.0808

    33.0697

    0.1252

    Compute-optimized

    acp.perf.large

    8 vCPU/16 GiB/32 GiB

    36.4224

    0.1524

    56.4546

    0.2362

    Switch Between Billing Methods

    Instance Edition

    You can switch only from pay-as-you-go instance groups to subscription instance groups. This switch does not affect your Cloud Phone data or usage.

    Prerequisites

    • The Cloud Phone instance group is in the active state.

    • You have no unpaid orders. If you have unpaid orders, you must pay or cancel them before switching.

    Procedure

    1. Log on to the Cloud Phone console.

    2. In the left-side navigation pane, choose Manage Resource > Instance Group.

    3. On the Instance Groups page, find an instance group that uses the pay-as-you-go billing method and is in the active state. In the Actions column, click the ⋮ icon, and then select Switch Billing Method.

      Note

      You can use the icon in the table headers of the Status and Billing Pattern columns in the instance group list to quickly filter for desired instance groups.

    4. On the Cloud Phone – Switch Billing Method page, in the Duration section, select a subscription duration. In the lower-right corner of the page, review the cost details. Then click Switch Now.

      Note

      To avoid service interruption when your instance group expires, consider enabling Auto-renewal.

    5. Complete payment as prompted.

    Payment Methods

    You can use the following payment methods:

    • Alibaba Cloud account balance

    • Online payment

    Refund Policy

    If you no longer need a subscription resource before its expiration date, you can unsubscribe. Before requesting unsubscription, confirm that you understand the related rules and limits. For more information, see or International Website Unsubscription Rules. For step-by-step instructions, see Initiate Unsubscription.

    Important

    You cannot unsubscribe from part of a subscription instance group.

    Query bills

    Procedure

    1. Go to the Expenses and Costs page.

    2. In the navigation pane on the left, choose Billing Management > Bill Details.

      Note

      This topic describes the new UI. If your page looks different, click Try New Version at the bottom of the navigation pane on the left to switch.

    3. On the Bill Details page, set the filter conditions as required and click Search.

      You can use Group By and Statistical Period to control the aggregation dimension and time frame for your bills. The matching results are displayed in a list.

    Related operations

    On the Detailed Bills tab, you can perform the following actions:

    • Click the icon in the upper-right corner of the list. In the Customize Columns dialog box, select the columns to display in the table.

    • Click the icon in the upper-right corner of the list. In the Export Bill CSV dialog box, select the content to export. This action exports the current bill as a CSV file to your local device. You can use spreadsheet software to open and analyze the file.

    Effects of overdue payments

    Your Alibaba Cloud account has an overdue payment if your available credit is less than your unsettled bills. Available credit includes your account balance, and coupons.

    Note

    Open the Expenses and Costs page to view your overdue bills.

    After a payment becomes overdue, your pay-as-you-go cloud phones enter the Overdue state. The data on the cloud phones is retained, but you cannot use them. You cannot power on, power off, restart, or connect to the cloud phones. To resume using the service, top up your account within 15 days after the payment becomes overdue. Otherwise, the cloud phone resources are automatically released starting on the 16th day.

    Warning

    After the cloud phone resources are released, the data on them is also deleted and cannot be recovered.

    FAQ

    Why am I still being charged after releasing my cloud phone?

    Dependent resources such as NAT gateways, elastic IP addresses (EIPs), and Internet Shared Bandwidth instances are not automatically released with the cloud phone. Verify that the following resources have been released:

    ResourceConsole
    NAT GatewayNAT Gateway console
    EIPEIP console
    Internet Shared BandwidthInternet Shared Bandwidth console

    Am I charged for connecting to a cloud phone?

    No. Protocol-based traffic for connecting to cloud phones is free of charge.