This topic describes how to calculate and select an hourly commitment to purchase appropriate savings plans, and how to view the results of applying savings plans.

Purchase savings plans

You can purchase a savings plan recommended by the system or purchase a savings plan based on your own consumption trends.
  • Purchase a system-recommended savings plan

    If you want to optimize the costs of your pay-as-you-go instances, you can go to the Recommended page for system recommendations. You need to configure only the savings plan type, duration, and payment option, and the system recommends a savings plan with an appropriate hourly commitment based on your configurations. The recommendation feature is available for Elastic Compute Service (ECS) instances and elastic container instances.

  • Select and purchase a savings plan on your own

    If you have not created pay-as-you-go instances, you can calculate an hourly commitment before you purchase a savings plan on the Savings Plans page.

    For more information about how to calculate and select an appropriate hourly commitment, see the following Select an hourly commitment for ECS instances and Select an hourly commitment for elastic container instances sections in this topic. The prices provided in this topic are for reference only. The actual prices displayed on the buy page prevail.

The following table describes the attributes of savings plans.
Attribute Description
Savings plan type Savings plans are classified into the following two types:
  • General-purpose savings plan: General-purpose savings plans can be automatically applied to eligible pay-as-you-go instances regardless of region, instance family, instance size, or operating system. General-purpose savings plans are more flexible than ECS compute savings plans and can offset up to 72% of the pay-as-you-go bill amount.
  • ECS compute savings plan: ECS compute savings plans can be applied to only pay-as-you-go instances of a specified instance family within a specified region regardless of instance size or operating system. ECS compute savings plans are more cost-effective than general-purpose savings plans and can offset up to 76% of the pay-as-you-go bill amount.
Region When you select ECS compute savings plans, you must specify a region.
Purchase method When you select ECS compute savings plans, you must specify a purchase method.
Instance family When you select ECS compute savings plans, you must specify an instance family.
Hourly commitment The hourly usage amount to which you commit. Minimum value: USD0.01 /hour. Resource usage within your commitment is calculated and offset based on the savings plan unit price. Resource usage beyond your commitment is billed at the regular pay-as-you-go unit price.
Notice When you select the hourly commitment, use the savings plan discount price for calculation. For information about specific discounts, see the Discount Details page.
Payment option Three payment options are provided: All Upfront, Partial Upfront, and No Upfront. The All Upfront payment option provides the largest discount.
Duration You can choose a duration of one or three years. A duration of three years provides the largest discount.

Apply savings plans

After you purchase a savings plan, the savings plan is automatically applied to your pay-as-you-go instances. For information about the application rules, see the "Billing methods" section in Savings plans.

You can go to the Savings Plan page to view the information about how your savings plans are applied, including the saving amount, plan details, usage, and coverage.

Select an hourly commitment for ECS instances

For example, assume that John plans to purchase a three-year general-purpose savings plan with the All Upfront payment option and apply the plan to the following ECS instances.
Note The calculation procedure described in this example only shows how to calculate the required hourly commitment. It does not mean that subsequent resources must belong to the specified instance family within the specified region.
Instance Region Instance type System disk Network bandwidth Eligible quantity
Instance A China (Shanghai) ecs.g6.xlarge 40 GiB ESSD PL0 3 Mbit/s 15
Instance B China (Beijing) ecs.c5.large 40 GiB ESSD PL0 3 Mbit/s 5

Perform the following operations to calculate an appropriate hourly commitment:

  1. Go to the Pricing tab of the Elastic Compute Service page and the Discount Details page to obtain the regular pay-as-you-go and savings plan prices of Instance A.
    The following table describes the prices of a single instance.
    Billable item Pay-as-you-go price (USD/hour) Savings plan discount Savings plan price (USD/hour)
    ECS instance type (computing resources) 0.155 54.5% off 0.0705
    System disk 0.0064 58.8% off 0.0026
    Network bandwidth 0.054 57.5% off 0.0229

    After the savings plan is applied, the total cost of Instance A is calculated based on the following formula: (0.0705 + 0.0026 + 0.0229) × 15 = USD 1.44/hour.

  2. Query and calculate the prices of Instance B in the same way.
    The following table describes the prices of a single instance.
    Billable item Pay-as-you-go price (USD/hour) Savings plan discount Savings plan price (USD/hour)
    ECS instance type (computing resources) 0.1 72.7% off 0.0273
    System disk 0.0064 58.8% off 0.0026
    Network bandwidth 0.054 57.5% off 0.0229

    After the savings plan is applied, the total cost of Instance B is calculated based on the following formula: (0.0273 + 0.0026 + 0.0229) × 5 = USD 0.264/hour.

  3. Calculate an appropriate hourly commitment, which is the sum of total costs of Instance A and Instance B.
    In this example, the recommended hourly commitment is calculated based on the following formula: 1.44 + 0.264 ≈ USD 1.70/hour.

Select an hourly commitment for elastic container instances

For example, assume that William wants to optimize the costs for his elastic container instances. The hourly bill of the elastic container instances is USD 8/hour. William wants to purchase a three-year general-purpose savings plan with the All Upfront payment option.

  1. Go to the Discount Details page to obtain the discounts for elastic container instances.
    In this example, the savings plan discount is 54.5%.
  2. Calculate an appropriate hourly commitment.
    In this example, after the savings plan is applied, the hourly cost for per elastic container instance is calculated based on the following formula:8 × 0.455 = USD 3.64/hour. Therefore, when William purchases a three-year general-purpose savings plan with the All Upfront payment option, an hourly commitment of USD3.64 /hour is recommended to offset the existing hourly bills of the elastic container instances.

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