If you use a paid commercial image or an image based on a paid commercial image to create a ENS instance, you will incur operating system license fees. This topic describes the operating system license fees.
Usage notes
Pay-as-you-go instances activated by your business manager do not support the use of paid commercial images. If you want to use a paid commercial image, contact your business manager to change the billing method to instance-based pay-as-you-go.
The paid commercial image will be released at 09:00 on June 10, 2025 (UTC+8). Existing ENS instances that use Windows images on nodes in China (Hong Kong), China (Macao), China (Taiwan), and other regions outside the Chinese mainland will be charged.
Billing Scenarios
The following table describes the scenarios in which you are charged operating system license fees for different types of images.
Image type | Scenario in which you are charged software license fees for images |
Public images | When you use an Alibaba Cloud public image to create an instance, you must pay for the operating system license fee if you select a Windows operating system that is deployed in China (Hong Kong), China (Macao), China (Taiwan), and other regions outside the Chinese mainland. |
Custom images |
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Shared images | You are charged operating system license fees when you create ECS instances by using a shared or community image that is derived from a public image for a paid operating system. |
Billing method
The billing duration of the software license fee of the ENS image is the same as that of the instance type. The following table describes how software license fees are billed for ECS instances that are created from a paid image and use different billing methods.
Billing method | Subscription serverless resource group | Unit prices of pay-as-you-go resources |
Instance billing method | Valid values for the subscription billing method: | Instance (Pay-as-you-go) |
Billable duration | By default, the billing duration is the subscription duration. If you unsubscribe from the subscription instance, the billing duration starts when the instance is created and ends when the instance is released. | Billing starts when the instance that uses the paid image is created and ends when the instance is released or replaced with another operating system. |
Unit price | 28.8 USD/vCPU/month | 0.04 USD/vCPU/hour |
Billing examples | If you use a pay-per-use Windows image for an ENS instance with 4 vCPUs, the fee for one month is USD 28.8/vCPU/month * 4 vCPUs * 1 month=USD 115.2. | If you use a pay-per-use Windows image for an ENS instance with 4 vCPUs, the fee for 5 hours is USD 0.04/vCPU/hour × 4 vCPUs × 5 hours=USD 0.8. |