Billing rules of Express Connect - Express Connect - Alibaba Cloud Documentation Center

This topic describes the billable items and billing rules of Express Connect.

Billable items

The following table describes the billable items of Express Connect.

Items billed by third-party service providers

Billable item	Dedicated Express Connect circuit	Shared Express Connect circuit	Billing rule
Optical fiber installation	The connectivity provider charges you for the leased Express Connect circuit. Contact your connectivity provider to obtain the prices for leasing an Express Connect circuit. Note The server rooms in access points belong to third-party ISPs or data centers. When you install an Express Connect circuit, you may be charged. If you install an Express Connect circuit in your data center, the colocation provider of your data center may also charge a cabling fee. For more information, see Locations of access points.	If you want to use a shared Express Connect circuit established by an Express Connect partner, you need to contact the Express Connect partner.	For more information, contact the third-party service provider.
Indoor cable rental
Optical transceiver module	Alibaba Cloud provides single-mode optical transceiver modules with 1 Gbit/s and 10 Gbit/s ports free of charge. The maximum transmission distance of these optical transceiver modules is 10 km. To use the following single-mode optical transceiver modules, you need to purchase them from a third party: Single-mode optical transceiver modules with 1 Gbit/s and 10 Gbit/s ports that support a transmission distance greater than 10 km. 40 Single-mode optical transceiver modules with 40 Gbit/s and 100 Gbit/s ports.	No	For more information, contact the third-party service provider.

Items billed by Alibaba Cloud

Billable item

Dedicated Express Connect circuit

Shared Express Connect circuit

Billing rule

Resource usage

The resource usage fee varies based on the specifications of the port over which a dedicated Express Connect circuit is established.
The resource usage fee is billed on a monthly basis. A billing cycle starts when you activate or renew resources and ends at 00:00:00 on the day after the expiration date. Both the start time and end time are in UTC+8 and the start time is accurate to seconds.
After a billing cycle ends, bills are generated on the first day of the following calendar month.

The resource usage fee varies based on the specifications of the port over which a shared Express Connect circuit is established.
The resource usage fee is billed on a monthly basis. A billing cycle starts when you activate or renew resources and ends at 00:00:00 on the day after the expiration date. Both the start time and end time are in UTC+8 and the start time is accurate to seconds.
After a billing cycle ends, bills are generated on the first day of the following calendar month.

You are charged on a monthly basis. For more information, see Resource usage fee.

Outbound data transfer

Alibaba Cloud charges you for outbound data transfer over the dedicated Express Connect circuit from Alibaba Cloud to your data center.

You are charged for the outbound data transfer in all regions within your account.
The outbound data transfer fee for each region is calculated by using the following formula: Outbound data transfer fee = Unit price of outbound data transfer × Amount of data transferred on all connections over dedicated Express Connect circuits in the region.
The owner of a dedicated Express Connect circuit pays outbound data transfer fees. If a dedicated Express Connect circuit is associated with a virtual border router (VBR) that belongs to another Alibaba Cloud account, the owner of the Express Connect circuit pays for the outbound data transfer of the VBR.
Fees are calculated and bills are generated on an hourly basis. If you use the service for less than 1 hour, the usage duration is rounded up to 1 hour.

Alibaba Cloud charges you for outbound data transfer over shared Express Connect circuits from Alibaba Cloud to your data center.

You are charged for the outbound data transfer of all regions within your account.
The outbound data transfer fee for each region is calculated by using the following formula: Outbound data transfer fee = Unit price of outbound data transfer × Amount of data transferred on all connections over shared Express Connect circuits in the region.
Fees are calculated and bills are generated on an hourly basis. If you use the service for less than 1 hour, the usage duration is rounded up to 1 hour.

You are charged based on the amount of transferred data. For more information, see Outbound data transfer fee.

Note

Shared ports are not offered publicly. The owners of Express Connect circuits must contact their account managers to apply for the permissions to create shared ports. To apply for shared ports, enterprises in China must hold an A26 license issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT).
Enterprises outside China are not subject to the preceding requirements. To create shared ports, Express Connect circuit owners can contact the account manager to apply for the required permissions.

More information

Overdue payment

If an instance expires or your Alibaba Cloud account has overdue payments, you must renew the instance or add funds to your Alibaba Cloud account. Otherwise, your business may be affected.

Billable item

Billing method

Expiration and overdue payments

Renewal and account top-up

Express Connect circuits

Subscription

An Express Connect circuit is suspended 15 days after it expires. The Express Connect circuit stops providing services after it is suspended. However, the configurations of the Express Connect circuit are retained.
The system sends email notifications to you seven days, three days, and one day before an Express Connect circuit expires.
Alibaba Cloud releases an Express Connect circuit seven days after the Express Connect circuit is suspended. After the Express Connect circuit is released, its configurations and data are deleted and cannot be recovered.

An Express Connect circuit is resumed if you renew the Express Connect circuit within 15 days after the Express Connect circuit expires.

Outbound data transfer

Pay-as-you-go

If a pay-as-you-go instance within your Alibaba Cloud account has an overdue payment due to an unpaid bill, the system sends email notifications to you.

The instance is automatically released if you do not settle the overdue payment within seven days after the instance has an overdue payment. The configurations and related data are deleted and cannot be recovered after the instance is released.

The system sends an email notification to you one day before the system releases the instance.

You can add funds to your account if you want to use the pay-as-you-go instance that has an overdue payment.

The system automatically settles the overdue payment and resumes the instance if you add funds to your account within seven days after the instance is suspended.

Query bills

You can query bills of Express Connect to facilitate cost management.

Note

When you create a shared connection over an Express Connect circuit pre-installed by an Express Connect partner and the shared connection is paid by the partner, you need to contact the partner and log on to the Express Connect console by using the Alibaba Cloud account of the partner to query bills.

View the overview of monthly bills

Log on to the Expenses and Costs console. In the left-side navigation pane, choose Bills > Overview of Monthly Bill to view your monthly bills over the entire billing cycle. You can also export the bills.

View billing details

Log on to the Expenses and Costs console. In the left-side navigation pane, choose Bills > Bill Details to view the billing details about your clusters and billable items by billing cycle, day, or billing period.

References

Billing methods:

Resource plans: Outbound data transfer plans

More references: