With pay-as-you-go, you are charged for the resources you actually use. Bills are generated at the end of each billing cycle, and fees are deducted from your account balance automatically.
When to use pay-as-you-go
Pay-as-you-go works best when:
Resource usage fluctuates
You need resources temporarily and do not want a long-term commitment
To reduce costs for long-running instances, switch to subscription billing. See Change the billing method from pay-as-you-go to subscription.
Billing components
Pay-as-you-go charges are based on the following components. Each component is calculated as: unit price × quantity × usage duration.
| Component | Applies to | Formula |
|---|---|---|
| Compute unit (CU) fees | All instance types (frontend nodes (FE) and backend/compute nodes (BE/CN)) | Number of CUs × unit price × usage duration |
| Enterprise SSD (ESSD) fees | All instance types (FE and BE/CN nodes) | ESSD capacity (GB) × unit price × usage duration |
| Backend node (BE) fees | Shared-nothing instances with high-performance storage specifications | Unit price of BE specifications × number of BEs × usage duration |
| Data storage fees | Shared-data instances | Storage resources × unit price × usage duration |
For shared-data instances, data storage fees are based on actual usage and are billed separately from ESSD fees.
Billing cycle
Bills are generated on an hourly basis at the top of every hour (UTC+8). A new billing cycle starts after the bills are settled.
Check the actual price on the buy page before creating an instance. Prices vary by region and instance configuration.
For a full list of billable items and pricing, see Billable items.
Billing examples
The following examples show how to calculate hourly fees for each instance type.
Shared-nothing instance (standard specifications)
Region: China (Hangzhou). BE specification tier: standard. CUs per BE: 8. Number of BEs: 3.
Configuration:
| Node | CUs | Storage |
|---|---|---|
| Frontend node (FE) | 24 | ESSD PL1, 300 GB |
| Backend nodes (BE) x 3 | 24 (total) | ESSD PL1, 300 GB (total) |
Hourly cost breakdown:
| Item | Calculation | Cost (USD) |
|---|---|---|
| CU fees | 48 CUs x $0.050617 x 1 hour | $2.429616 |
| ESSD fees | 600 GB x $0.000319 x 1 hour | $0.191400 |
| Total | $2.621016 |
Billing component | Fee (USD) |
| Total fees = CU fees + ESSD fees = 2.429616 + 0.14355 = 2.573166
Important The fees for data storage vary based on the actual usage. |
Billing component | Fee (USD) |
| Total fees = CU fees + ESSD fees + BE fees = 1.214808 + 0.0957 + 3.54 = 4.850508
|
Billing component | Fee (USD) |
| Total fees = CU fees + ESSD fees = 2.429616 + 0.1914 = 2.621016
|
Shared-nothing instance (high-performance storage specifications)
Region: China (Beijing). BE specification: 16 cores, 64 GiB of memory, local SSD with 1,788 GiB. Number of BEs: 3.
Configuration:
| Node | CUs | Storage |
|---|---|---|
| Frontend node (FE) | 24 | ESSD PL1, 300 GB |
| Backend nodes (BE) x 3 | 48 cores and 192 GiB of memory (billed by BE specification) | Local SSD, 5,364 GiB (total) |
Hourly cost breakdown:
| Item | Calculation | Cost (USD) |
|---|---|---|
| CU fees (FE only) | 24 CUs x $0.050617 x 1 hour | $1.214808 |
| ESSD fees (FE only) | 300 GB x $0.000319 x 1 hour | $0.095700 |
| BE fees | $1.18/BE x 3 BEs x 1 hour | $3.540000 |
| Total | $4.850508 |
Shared-data instance (standard edition)
Region: China (Hangzhou). Edition: standard. CUs per compute node (CN): 8. Number of CNs: 3.
Configuration:
| Node | CUs | Storage |
|---|---|---|
| Frontend node (FE) | 24 | ESSD PL1, 300 GB |
| Compute nodes (CN) x 3 | 24 (total) | ESSD PL1, 150 GB (total) |
Hourly cost breakdown:
| Item | Calculation | Cost (USD) |
|---|---|---|
| CU fees | 48 CUs x $0.050617 x 1 hour | $2.429616 |
| ESSD fees | 450 GB x $0.000319 x 1 hour | $0.143550 |
| Data storage fees | Based on actual usage | $0.000036041667/GB-hour |
| Total (excluding data storage) | $2.573166 |
Data storage fees depend on actual data volume stored and are not included in the total above.
What's next
If you plan to run an instance continuously, switch to subscription billing to reduce costs. See Change the billing method from pay-as-you-go to subscription.