This topic describes how to manage expenses for Alibaba Cloud Elasticsearch (ES). You will learn how to view bills, unsubscribe from services, request refunds, and manage renewals. It also covers the rules for instance expiration and overdue payments for different billing methods and provides instructions on how to switch billing methods, manage costs, and prevent service interruptions.
View bills
View monthly product consumption
Overview: On the Billing Overview page of the Expenses and Costs console, you can view monthly bills for all cloud products that incurred costs. You can view bills by enterprise or organization. This feature is not available for individual accounts. You can add funds to your account to pay any Outstanding Amount.
View bill details
On the Bill Details page, you can customize the Statistic Item and Statistic Period to view bill details.
Amount Due: The actual amount you need to pay after applying discounts, subscriptions such as savings plans, and coupons.
Expiration and overdue payments
The following sections describe the changes in service status and how you are affected when an ES instance expires or has an overdue payment. This includes the entire process from the initial overdue payment and service suspension to the final data deletion and instance release.
Expiration process for subscription instances
Before expiration
If your account balance is sufficient and auto-renewal is enabled, the system automatically deducts the payment 9 days before the instance expires. To prevent the charge, you must cancel auto-renewal before the payment is deducted.
The system sends expiration reminder notifications 7 days, 3 days, and 1 day before the instance expires.
Immediate service suspension after expiration
The service for the instance is suspended. You cannot read or write data. However, your data is retained. You can manually renew the instance to resume the service.
Instance release on the 8th day after expiration
At 00:00 on the 8th day after the instance expires, the system automatically releases the instance.
Data deletion: After the instance is released, its data is permanently deleted within 24 hours and cannot be recovered.
Physical resources: The instance is released (physically deleted) and cannot be recovered.
Overdue payment process for pay-as-you-go instances
Within 24 hours of an overdue payment
When your account balance is less than CNY 0, the system sends you an overdue payment notification.
The instance remains active and continues to incur charges.
Recommendation: We recommend that you add funds to your account to prevent service suspension.
Service suspension after 24 hours of an overdue payment
The service for the instance is suspended. You cannot read or write data. Billing stops.
Recommendation: We recommend that you add funds to your account until the balance is greater than CNY 0 to resume the service.
Within 7 days of service suspension
During this period, if you add funds to your account until the balance is greater than CNY 0, you can resume using the instance.
Instance release 7 days after service suspension
After 7 days, the system automatically releases the instance and immediately performs the following operations:
Data deletion: After the instance is released, its data is permanently deleted within 24 hours and cannot be recovered.
Physical resources: The instance is released (physically deleted) and cannot be recovered.
Before the instance is released, if you manually release the instance in the console, you can choose to:
Freeze the instance (each instance can be frozen up to 3 times). The instance is frozen for 24 hours. During this period, you can:
Resume the instance: After you resume the instance, it is billed as normal.
Purge the instance immediately: The data in the instance is deleted and cannot be recovered. The instance is no longer displayed in the instance list. After 24 hours, the instance resources are completely purged and cannot be recovered.
Purge the instance immediately: The data in the instance is deleted and cannot be recovered. The instance is no longer displayed in the instance list. After 24 hours, the instance resources are completely purged and cannot be recovered.
Renewal management
Renewal rules
Renewals for subscription instances are handled differently depending on whether you renew before or after expiration:
Renew before expiration (instance is in Normal status): After a successful renewal, the instance continues to run without interruption.
Renew after expiration (instance is in a frozen state): The instance is suspended after it expires. It automatically resumes after a successful renewal.
For pay-as-you-go instances, you only need to ensure your account has a sufficient balance. No renewal is required.
Manual renewal
In the Elasticsearch or Logstash instance list, click Renew to the right of the target instance.
On the Renew page, select a renewal duration and pay the fee.
Auto-renewal
To avoid service interruptions caused by forgetting to manually renew an instance, you can set up auto-renewal. The system will automatically renew the instance before it expires.
After you enable auto-renewal, you are only setting the renewal period. The renewal is not performed immediately. The system first attempts to deduct payment for the renewal 9 days before the instance expires. If the payment fails, the system retries once a day until the day before expiration or until the renewal is successful.
You can also cancel auto-renewal at any time. There are two ways: set the instance to not renew upon expiration, or switch back to manual renewal.
You can set up auto-renewal in one of the following two ways:
When you create a subscription instance, select Enable Auto-renewal On Expiration.
Log on to the Renewal page. On the Manual Renewal tab, select one or more products to renew. Click Renew or Enable Auto-renewal.
Cancel auto-renewal
If you no longer need to automatically renew an instance after the current billing cycle ends, you can cancel auto-renewal in advance. After you enable auto-renewal, the system starts to automatically deduct payment 9 days before the instance expires. You must cancel auto-renewal before the payment is deducted to prevent the charge.
In the console, find the instance for which you want to cancel auto-renewal and click Renew.
Click Renewal Management.
Select the product for which you want to cancel renewal and click Disable Renewal.
Billing method conversion
Prerequisites
The instance is in the Normal status, and there are no unpaid orders under your Alibaba Cloud account.
The data node specification is not 1-core 2 GB or 2-core 2 GB.
The ES version is not 7.4.
ImportantStarting from May 2021, Alibaba Cloud Elasticsearch no longer supports purchasing new instances of version 7.4. We recommend using version 7.10. Existing instances are not affected.
Convert from pay-as-you-go to subscription
In the Elasticsearch or Logstash instance list, click Switch to Subscription to the right of the target instance, or click
> Switch to Subscription.Alternatively, click the target instance ID. On the Basic Information page, in the Cluster Statistics section, click Switch to Subscription.
On the Convert Pay-As-You-Go To Subscription page, select a duration of at least 1 month and pay the fee.
Convert from subscription to pay-as-you-go
Subscription instances can be converted to the pay-as-you-go billing method. After the conversion, you are billed based on actual usage. The remaining subscription fee is refunded. This allows for cost optimization and flexible resource management.
Limits
Instances in Alibaba Finance Cloud and Alibaba Gov Cloud cannot be converted from subscription to pay-as-you-go.
Refund rules and amount
When a subscription instance is converted to pay-as-you-go, a service fee of 15% of the refund amount is charged.
Refund amount = Actual amount paid for the order - Amount consumed
The system refunds the actual amount paid and the value of any stored value cards to the original payment method. Coupons are not refunded.
If the instance to be converted has pending renewal or upgrade orders that have not yet taken effect, the system issues a full refund for those orders.
For renewal orders generated as compensation for reasons such as ICP filing, failures, or data center migration, the refundable amount is 0.
Procedure
In the Elasticsearch or Logstash instance list, click
> Switch to Pay-as-you-go to the right of the target instance.On the Convert Subscription To Pay-As-You-Go page, confirm the details and pay the fee.
Unsubscription and refunds
Unsubscription rules
Starting from 10:00 (UTC+8) on May 21, 2025, Alibaba Cloud will gradually upgrade the refund rules for subscription products as part of a grayscale release. If you used a voucher to pay for a subscription cloud product, the voucher amount can be refunded in proportion to the original payment structure when you unsubscribe. For more information, see Notice on the Upgrade of Refund Rules for Public Cloud Subscription Products.
Starting from 10:00 (UTC+8) on August 19, 2025, Alibaba Cloud will gradually upgrade the refund rules for public cloud resource plans as part of a grayscale release. If you used a voucher to pay for a resource plan, the voucher amount can be refunded in proportion to the original payment structure when you unsubscribe from the resource plan. For more information, see Announcement on the Update of Resource Plan Unsubscription Rules.
Billing Method | Unsubscription Rule | Applicable Conditions | Refund Amount |
Subscription | 5-day unconditional full refund |
| Refund amount = Actual amount paid for the order. This is the cash amount you actually paid and does not include the value of vouchers or coupons. |
Partial refund | Purchased more than 5 days ago or has been used. | Refund amount = Actual amount paid for the order - Amount consumed. | |
Unsubscribe from a pending renewal order | The resource has been renewed, but the renewal order has not yet taken effect, and no changes such as upgrades or downgrades have been made to the resource. You can choose to unsubscribe only from the pending renewal order. | Refund amount = Actual amount paid for the order. The actual amount paid is the cash amount paid for the order and does not include the value of vouchers or coupons. | |
Pay-as-you-go | Pay after use. No refund is involved. | ||
Unsubscribe
You can only unsubscribe from a service on a PC. You cannot unsubscribe using a mobile device, such as the Alibaba Cloud app or a mobile browser.
Log on to the Unsubscription page and check if your ES instance is active.
Order has taken effect: The instance appears on the Unsubscribe Resource or Unsubscribe In-Use Resource tab. If you decide to unsubscribe, you unsubscribe from both the existing order (the one that has taken effect) and any pending renewal orders (canceling future services that have not yet started).
Order has not taken effect: The instance appears on the Unsubscribe Pending Renewal or Unsubscribe Renewal Cycle tab. If you decide to unsubscribe, the pending order is canceled, but the currently used service (the part that has taken effect) remains valid and is not affected.
On the Unsubscription page, switch between the tabs for common cloud resources, resource plans, Alibaba Cloud Marketplace products, and virtual hosts to find and unsubscribe from the target order.
On the Unsubscribe Resource page, carefully check the information of the resource to be unsubscribed, confirm the unsubscription terms and refund amount, and then complete the unsubscription as prompted by the console.
Other refund scenarios
Node scale-in
Subscription: The fee for the scaled-in nodes is refunded based on the remaining billing cycle.
Pay-as-you-go: You are billed based on the actual number of nodes used.
Resource downgrade/Billing conversion
Refunds are processed according to the unsubscription rules.
Fund flow
After a resource is unsubscribed, the system refunds the amount to your original payment account. The process may take some time. You can view the refund status and amount on the My Orders page in the Alibaba Cloud Expenses and Costs console.
For orders paid through Alipay after March 29, 2019, if you unsubscribe within 18 months (548 days) of payment, the refund is returned to the Alipay account used for payment. If the refund fails, it is credited to your Alibaba Cloud account balance.
For orders paid through online banking, if you unsubscribe within 90 days of payment, the refund is generally returned to the original bank card. If the bank refund fails, it is credited to your Alibaba Cloud account balance.
For orders paid with your account balance, the refund is directly credited to your account balance.
For orders paid through other payment methods such as WeChat Pay or UnionPay QuickPass, the refund is returned to the original payment method by default. If the refund fails, it is credited to your Alibaba Cloud account balance.
Special cases
Refunds for orders for which an invoice has been issued:
If the refund amount is less than the current invoiceable amount of the account, the refund is returned to the original payment method by default. If the time limit for the original refund path has expired, the refund is credited to the account balance.
Refund amount limits:
The portion paid with coupons is not refundable. Only the amount paid in cash or with a stored value card is refunded.
Refund arrival time
After a product is successfully unsubscribed, the refund is typically processed within 2 business days. The refund only includes the amount paid in cash or with a stored value card. The portion paid with vouchers or coupons is not refundable.
For orders paid through online banking that are eligible for a refund to the original payment method, the refund is expected to arrive within 2 to 3 business days, depending on the bank's processing time.