A savings plan is a discount plan that allows you to receive pay-as-you-go billing discounts in exchange for a commitment to use a consistent amount of resources (measured in USD per hour) over a one-year or three-year period. After you purchase a savings plan, the hourly bills of your pay-as-you-go instances are covered up to the amount of the plan. This topic describes the billing methods and application rules of savings plans.
Billing method and payment options
When you purchase a savings plan, you make a commitment to use a consistent amount of resources (measured in USD per hour) over a one-year or three-year period. After you purchase the savings plan, hourly bills of your pay-as-you-go instances are covered up to the amount of the plan. Savings plans must be used in conjunction with pay-as-you-go instances. Savings plans cannot be separately used. For more information, see Overview.
- All Upfront: Full payment is required upfront at purchase. No other fees are charged for the duration of the term.
- Partial Upfront: Partial payment (about 50% of the full amount) is required upfront at purchase. The remainder is paid on an hourly basis for the duration of the term.
- No Upfront: No upfront payment is required at purchase. The total fee is paid on an
hourly basis for the duration of the term.
Note The total fee required for different payment options is the same, but the more you pay upfront, the greater the discount that you receive is and the more pay-as-you-go bills your savings plan can cover. Your Elastic Compute Service (ECS) usage determines whether you can use the No Upfront payment option. If you want to use the No Upfront payment option, submit a ticket.
- All Upfront: The full amount of USD 876 is paid upfront at purchase.
- Partial Upfront: 50% of the full amount, USD 438, is paid upfront at purchase. The remaining USD 438 is charged at a rate of USD 0.05 per hour on an hourly basis for the duration of the term, which is one year in this case.
- No Upfront: No upfront payment is made at purchase. The total fee is charged at a rate of USD 0.1 per hour on an hourly basis for the duration of the term.
Application rules
You can receive different discounts based on your selected payment option for your savings plans within the term. For more information, go to the Discount Details page.
- The type of the saving plan
ECS compute savings plans offer higher discounts than general-purpose savings plans.
- The term of the savings plan
A longer term of a savings plan provides a higher discount.
- The payment option of the savings plan
The discount provided by different savings plan payment options decreases in the following order: All Upfront > Partial Upfront > No Upfront.
- The instance family of the eligible instance
- The region of the eligible instance
- The operating system of the eligible instance
- If you have both general-purpose and ECS compute savings plans, the ECS compute savings plan is applied first.
- If your pay-as-you-go instances are billed based on a discount higher than that of your savings plans, the higher discount is applied first and the discounted charges are covered by your commitment of the savings plans.
- If you have different types of savings plans that offer different discounts, the plans take effect in the order in which they were purchased. For example, if you purchased an All Upfront savings plan and then a Partial Upfront savings plan, the All Upfront savings plan is applied first and then the Partial Upfront savings plan.
Examples
The following table provides examples of how savings plans apply in common scenarios. The unit prices and discounts described in the table are for reference only. The actual prices and discounts on the Pricing tab of the Elastic Compute Service page and the Discount Details page shall prevail.
| Pay-as-you-go instance | Savings plan | Hourly bill |
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Note When multiple savings plans are applied to pay-as-you-go instances, the system optimizes
how the savings plans are applied.
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