This topic describes how Elastic Compute Service (ECS) resources are handled after payments become overdue for them within your account.

Subscription resources

You have paid upfront fees for subscription resources and can use subscription resources before they expire regardless of whether payments become overdue within your account. However, when payments become overdue, you cannot perform operations that incur charges, such as purchasing new instances, upgrading instance configurations, or renewing subscription resources.
Note If your subscription instance uses the pay-by-traffic billing method for network usage, the instance can no longer use the public bandwidth service after payments become overdue.

Subscription resources have a validity period based on the subscription duration that you specify when you purchase the resources. After the subscription duration of a subscription resource ends, the resource cannot be used. If you do not renew the resource within a specific period, the resource is automatically released. For more information, see Changes in resource status after an instance expires in the Subscription topic.

Pay-as-you-go resources

The system attempts to deduct the fees of pay-as-you-go resources three times: on the due date (T), day T+7, and day T+14. If the fees of a pay-as-you-go instance cannot be deducted on the due date (T), payment becomes overdue for the instance and the system attempts to deduct the fees again on day T+7 and day T+14. If all three attempts to deduct the fees fail, the instance is stopped on day T+15 and its billing also stops.

Notice If payments become overdue within your account, your pay-as-you-go instances may be stopped. The system sends you notifications about the overdue payments. We recommend that you complete the overdue payments in a timely manner to ensure that your service remains available. If you still have problems, submit a ticket.
The following status changes occur on pay-as-you-go resources after payments become overdue:
  1. Within the 15 days after payments become overdue, you can continue to use existing resources but cannot purchase new instances, upgrade instance configurations, or renew resources.
  2. Within the 15 days after a pay-as-you-go instance is stopped due to overdue payments, you must submit a ticket to complete the overdue payments and reactivate the instance. Otherwise, the instance is released.
    Note An instance can be reactivated or restarted, but the two terms apply to different scenarios.
    • reactivate indicates that a pay-as-you-go instance that has entered the Expired state due to an overdue payment is restored to the Running state. After the overdue payment is completed, the instance is automatically reactivated. If the instance cannot be automatically reactivated, you can manually reactivate it. For more information, see Start an instance.
    • restart indicates that an instance in the Running state is restarted.
  3. More than 15 days after pay-as-you-go resources are stopped due to overdue payments, the pay-as-you-go resources are released, detached, or disassociated.

If all three attempts to deduct fees fail, the instance is stopped. The following table describes the changes in resource status after your pay-as-you-go instance is stopped due to overdue payments.

Resource Within 15 days after the instance is stopped More than 15 days after the instance is stopped
Computing resource (vCPUs and memory) The computing resources (vCPUs and memory) are retained, but the instance is stopped and does not provide services.

When a pay-as-you-go instance is automatically stopped due to overdue payments, it enters the Expired state and its billing ends. After an instance is stopped, you cannot connect to the instance or access websites deployed on the instance, and service errors may occur.

The computing resources (vCPUs and memory) are released.
Note If your computing resources (vCPUs and memory) are released due to overdue payments, the system sends you an email notification.
Image The image is unavailable. The image is unavailable.
Elastic Block Storage (EBS) device
  • Cloud disks and data stored on them are retained, but the cloud disks cannot be used.
  • Local disks and data stored on them are retained, but the local disks cannot be used.
Note After cloud disks or local disks become unusable, they cannot properly process read/write requests. This affects how the instances to which these disks are attached run. For example, the read/write performance of applications may significantly degrade, it may take an extended period of time to perform operations, or instances may be unexpectedly powered down or cannot be restarted if they use specific operating systems.
  • Cloud disks are released and data stored on them cannot be restored.
    Note Data disks created along with pay-as-you-go instances and pay-as-you-go data disks separately created on the Disks page in the ECS console are released.
  • Local disks are released and data stored on them cannot be restored.
IP address
  • If the instance is of the classic network type, its public IP address is retained.
  • If the instance is of the virtual private cloud (VPC) type, the following rules apply:
    • The public IP address is retained.
    • The elastic IP address (EIP) associated with the instance remains unchanged.
  • If the instance is of the classic network type, its public IP address is released.
  • If the instance is of the VPC type, the following rules apply:
    • The public IP address is released.
    • The EIP is disassociated from the instance.
Snapshot All snapshots are retained, but automatic snapshots cannot be created. All snapshots are deleted, except for those that were used to create cloud disks or custom images.