Pay-as-you-go - Realtime Compute for Apache Flink - Alibaba Cloud Documentation Center

The pay-as-you-go billing method allows you to use resources before you pay for the resources. You do not need to purchase a large number of resources in advance. The system calculates the fees based on the actual resource usage of your workspace. This topic describes the billing rules of pay-as-you-go, unit prices in different regions, and information about how to stop billing.

Item	Description
Scenarios	The pay-as-you-go billing method is suitable for the following scenarios: Resource usage fluctuates. Temporary use of resources is required.
Billing rules	If you use the pay-as-you-go billing method of Realtime Compute for Apache Flink, billing is accurate to the minute and fees are calculated based on the number of compute units (CUs) per minute. The bill that is generated in a one-hour billing cycle is the sum of the computing resource fee and the resource fee for the management service. The computing resource fee and management resource fee in a billing cycle are calculated by using the following formulas: Computing resource fee = Sum of CUs consumed per minute in an hour/60 × Unit price per hour in the related region For example, if 4 CUs are consumed per minute in the first half of an hour and 2 CUs are consumed per minute in the second half of an hour, the usage of computing resources is calculated by using the following formula: 4 CUs × 30 minutes + 2 CUs × 30 minutes = 180. The price of the computing resources on the bill is calculated by using the following formula: Computing resource fee = 180/60 × Unit price in the related region. Management resource fee = Resource usage of the management service/60 × Number of CUs consumed by the management service × Unit price per hour in the related region. Resource usage of the management service is fixed at 60 per hour. This indicates that the management service uses resources for 60 minutes. The number of CUs consumed by the management service is fixed at 2. For more information about computing resources and management resources, see Billable items. For more information about the unit prices in different regions, see Unit prices in different regions. Important You can view the fees on the buy page. The fee that is calculated based on the preceding formula is the fee of one Flink workspace. You can purchase multiple workspaces for an Alibaba Cloud account. When you complete the payment for an Alibaba Cloud account, you must make payment based on the total fees of multiple workspaces.
Billing cycle	Bills are generated on an hourly basis at the top of every hour (UTC+8). The new billing cycle starts after the bills are settled. After each billing cycle ends, the system generates a bill and deducts the fees from your account.
Impact of overdue payments on resources	The impact on your business varies based on the period of time after a pay-as-you-go workspace becomes overdue. For more information, see Overdue payments.
Billing termination	If you want to stop billing, you can perform the following operations to release the workspace after you make sure that data is backed up or migrated and your business is not affected. You are not charged for the workspace after the workspace is released. In the top navigation bar of the Realtime Compute for Apache Flink page, select the region in which your workspace resides. Find the desired workspace and choose More > Release Resources in the Actions column. In the message that appears, click OK. Important You are also charged for the deployments that do not run, such as the deployment that you cancel and the deployment that you do not use after you purchase. To stop billing for such a deployment, you must release the workspace to which the deployment belongs. Fees of Flink include fees for billable resources and management resources. You are not charged for computing resources. However, you are still charged for management resources that are calculated based on the following formula: Management resource fee = 2 CUs × Unit price in a region. If you find that fees incur for a workspace after the workspace is released, view the bill to confirm the consumption time.

Unit prices in different regions

Important

The following table lists the unit prices that are rounded to the nearest three decimal places in different regions. The actual prices on the product buy page shall prevail.

Region	Unit price (USD per CU per hour)
China (Shenzhen), China (Beijing), China (Shanghai), and China (Hangzhou)	0.06
China (Hong Kong)	0.09
Singapore	0.09
US (Silicon Valley)	0.07
Germany (Frankfurt)	0.10
Japan (Tokyo)	0.10
Indonesia (Jakarta)	0.08
UK (London)	0.09
Malaysia (Kuala Lumpur)	0.08
China (Zhangjiakou)	0.05

References

Am I still charged after I create a pay-as-you-go workspace but do not run a deployment on the workspace?
Is an amount of fee deducted from my account balance if a workspace fails to be created?
How do I apply for a refund when I no longer need to use a workspace?
For more information about how to switch a pay-as-you-go workspace to a subscription workspace, see Switch from pay-as-you-go to subscription.
For more information about how to create a workspace, see Activate Realtime Compute for Apache Flink.