If the total value of your account balance and vouchers is less than the payable amount of your bill, the payment becomes overdue in your Alibaba Cloud account. This topic describes how Elastic Compute Service (ECS) resources are handled after payments become overdue for them in your account.

Subscription resources

You have paid upfront fees for subscription resources and can use subscription resources before they expire in case that payments become overdue in your account. However, when payments become overdue, you cannot perform operations that incur fees, 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 states after a subscription instance expires in the Subscription topic.

Pay-as-you-go resources

The system attempts to deduct the fees for pay-as-you-go resources three times: on the due date (T), the 7th day after the due date (day T+7), and the 14th day after the due date (day T+14). If the fees for a pay-as-you-go instance fails to be deducted on the due date (T), the payment for the instance becomes overdue and the system attempts to deduct the fees again on day T+7 and day T+14. If all attempts to deduct the fees for the pay-as-you-go instance fail, the instance is stopped on the 15th day after the due date (day T+15) and billing for the instance also stops.

Important If payments become overdue in your account, your pay-as-you-go instances may be stopped. The system sends you notifications about the overdue payments. To ensure that your service remains available, we recommend that you complete the payments at the earliest opportunity. If you still have questions, submit a ticket.
The following status changes occur on pay-as-you-go resources after payments become overdue:
  1. Within 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 15 days after a pay-as-you-go instance is stopped due to overdue payments, you can complete the payments and manually reactivate the instance. If you do not complete the payments and reactivate the instance within the 15-day grace period, the instance is automatically released. For information about how to complete a payment, see What do I do if I have an overdue payment?
    Note An instance can be reactivated or restarted, but the two terms apply to different scenarios.
    • reactivate: A pay-as-you-go instance that 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 the instance. For more information, see Start an instance.
    • restart: 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 resources are released, detached, or disassociated.

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

ResourceWithin 15 days after the instance is stoppedMore than 15 days after the instance is stopped
Computing resources (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, the instance enters the Expired state and billing for the instance stops. After an instance is stopped, you cannot connect to the instance or access the websites that are deployed on the instance. Service errors may also 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.
ImageThe image is unavailable. The image is unavailable.
Block storage devices
  • Cloud disks and data that is stored on the cloud disks are retained, but the cloud disks become unavailable.
  • Local disks and data that is stored on the local disks are retained, but the local disks become unavailable.
Note After cloud disks or local disks become unavailable, they cannot properly process read/write requests. This affects the operation of the instances to which the disks are attached. For example, the read/write performance of applications may significantly degrade, an extended period of time may be required to perform specific operations, or instances may be unexpectedly shut down or cannot restart if the instances use specific operating systems.
  • Cloud disks are released and data that is stored on the cloud disks cannot be recovered.
    Note Data disks that are created together with pay-as-you-go instances and pay-as-you-go data disks that are separately created on the Disks page in the ECS console are released.
  • Local disks are released and data that is stored on the local disks cannot be recovered.
IP addresses
  • If the instance is located in the classic network, the public IP address of the instance is retained.
  • If the instance is located in a virtual private cloud (VPC), the following rules apply:
    • The public IP address is retained.
      Important If economical mode is enabled before the instance is stopped, the public IP address of the instance may be recycled after the instance is stopped due to an overdue payment. The public IP address may change when the instance is started again.
    • The elastic IP address (EIP) that is associated with the instance remains unchanged.
  • If the instance is located in the classic network, the public IP address of the instance is released.
  • If the instance is located in a VPC, the following rules apply:
    • The public IP address is released.
    • The EIP is disassociated from the instance.
SnapshotsAll snapshots are retained, but automatic snapshots cannot be created. All snapshots are deleted, except for snapshots that were used to create cloud disks or custom images.