Edge Security Acceleration:Why am I still charged or have overdue payments after purchasing a resource plan?

Troubleshooting

Possible causes and solutions for charges or overdue payments after purchasing a resource plan

The following list describes the main reasons why you might be charged or have overdue payments after you purchase a DCDN resource plan. You can use this information to resolve the issue.

• Cause 1: Your DCDN usage involves multiple billable items, and the purchased resource plan does not cover all of them.

  DCDN billing consists of two parts: basic services and value-added services. Your usage may generate fees for multiple billable items, such as traffic and requests. Different resource plans offset different types of fees. A resource plan can only offset fees for its corresponding billable item. For example, if you purchase an outbound data transfer plan but incur charges for static HTTPS requests, you will be charged or have overdue payments.

  Note

  • For more information about billable items, see Billing overview.

  • For more information about resource plans, see Resource plans.

  Solution:

  Check your bill to confirm whether you have purchased resource plans for all billable items that incurred fees. If not, the charges are expected.

  You can check whether value-added services, such as HTTPS and real-time logs, are enabled. Value-added services are billed on a pay-as-you-go basis, and the system continuously deducts funds from your account. We recommend that you purchase a resource plan for these services. For more information, see Value-added service billing.

• Cause 2: The resource plan is for a specific acceleration region, but fees were incurred in other regions.

  DCDN resource plans usually have regional restrictions. A resource plan for one region can only offset fees generated in that region. For example, if you purchase an outbound data transfer plan for the global (the Chinese mainland) acceleration region, it can only offset fees in that region. It cannot offset fees in other regions, such as China (Hong Kong), Macao (China), Taiwan (China), and regions outside China.

  Solution:

  If you use multiple acceleration regions, we recommend that you purchase resource plans for each region to ensure that the corresponding fees can be offset. To purchase resource plans, see DCDN Resource Plan.

• Cause 3: The selected billing method does not match the resource plan.

  Currently, DCDN outbound data transfer plans support only the pay-by-traffic billing method. They can only offset traffic fees generated under the pay-by-traffic method. If you select the pay-by-peak-bandwidth or monthly 95th percentile peak bandwidth billing method, the resource plan cannot be applied, which results in charges or overdue payments.

  Solution:

  You can change the billing method in the DCDN console. For more information, see Change the billing method.

• Cause 4: Your actual usage exceeds the resource plan's specifications.

  If your actual usage exceeds the specifications of your resource plan, the excess usage is automatically billed on a pay-as-you-go basis. For example, if you purchase a 100 GB outbound data transfer plan and use 110 GB in a month, the extra 10 GB of traffic is billed on a pay-as-you-go basis. This may cause your account to have overdue payments.

  Solution:

  • Replenish after exceeding specifications: You can purchase a new resource plan to supplement your usage. However, the new plan cannot offset usage that has already occurred.

  Note

  For more information about resource plan consumption and usage details, see Query resource plan details.

• Cause 5: There is a delay in the billing system.

  DCDN resource plans take effect immediately after purchase. However, the DCDN billing system has a delay of 3 to 4 hours. For example, a bill that you receive at 10:00:00 on October 10, 2020 might be for usage between 06:00:00 and 07:00:00 on October 10, 2020.

  Solution:

  After you receive a bill, carefully check the time when the fees were generated.

Resource plan usage details

Usage details provide a per-deduction log, showing which pay-as-you-go instances were offset, the billable items, the time of deduction, the deducted quantity, and the deduction coefficient. You can use this data to reconcile deductions with your pay-as-you-go bills.

1. Log on to the Expenses and Costs console.

2. In the navigation pane on the left, choose Account > Resource Plan.

3. On the Resource Plan page under the Resource view, click the Details tab.

4. Select a Start Time of Deducted Instance, enter a Resource Plan ID or Pay-As-You-Go Instance, and click Search to view the required information.The following table describes the parameters.

   Parameter	Description
   Resource purchase account	The account that purchased the resource.
   Product name	The Alibaba Cloud product that the resource plan belongs to.
   Commodity name	The name of the resource plan, for example, Reserved Instance, Storage Capacity Unit, PolarDB Compute Plan, or ApsaraVideo Live Traffic Plan.
   Resource plan type	The category of the resource plan, for example, RI Zone Deduction, Compute Plan, or Reserved Space.
   Resource plan instance ID	The ID of the resource plan instance.
   Commitment cycle	The capacity refresh cycle of the resource plan, formerly known as "Capacity Category". Six types are available: No Period, Hourly, Daily, and Monthly. The Monthly type includes Free trial, By calendar month, and By dynamic month subtypes. No Period: Deductions are made based on actual consumption until the balance is depleted or the plan expires. Hourly: Provides a fixed quota every hour. Unused quota does not roll over to the next hour. Daily: Provides a fixed quota every day. Unused quota does not roll over to the next day. Monthly - Free trial: Provides a fixed monthly quota that is fully restored on the first day of the next month. If the plan is activated after 00:00 on the first day of a month, the first and last months share one month's quota. For all other months, unused quota does not roll over. Monthly - By calendar month: Provides a fixed monthly quota that is fully restored on the first day of the next month. Unused quota does not roll over. Monthly - By dynamic month: Provides a fixed monthly quota that is fully restored at 00:00 on the day after the monthly purchase date. Unused quota does not roll over.
   Deduction time	The time the deduction occurred.
   Before deduct capacity	The remaining capacity of the resource plan before this deduction occurred.
   Deducted capacity	The amount of capacity consumed from the resource plan in this deduction.
   Post deduct capacity	The remaining capacity of the resource plan after this deduction occurred.
   Deducted resource owner account	The account that owns the cloud resource usage deducted by the resource plan.
   Deducted commodity	The pay-as-you-go commodity to which the deducted cloud resource usage belongs.
   Deducted instance ID	The ID of the cloud resource instance whose usage was deducted by the resource plan.
   Deducted billable item	The billable item to which the deducted cloud resource usage belongs, such as an instance or a system disk.
   Original usuage of instance	The usage of the deducted cloud resource instance. Due to a deduction coefficient, the actual usage of a cloud resource instance may not be equal to the deducted quantity from the resource plan.
   Deduction coefficient	The coefficient applied when a resource plan deducts the usage of a cloud resource. For example, if 0.13 GiB of SCU capacity can deduct 1 GiB of PDS storage, the deduction coefficient for SCU to PDS is 0.13.
   Start time of deducted instance	The billing start time for the deducted cloud resource instance.
   End time of deducted instance	The billing end time for the deducted cloud resource instance.
   Resource plan owner account	The account that owns the resource plan instance.