This topic describes the billing methods, billable items, and billing cycles of Global Accelerator (GA).
To participate in a free trial, submit an application. Free trials are available only for subscription standard GA instances. For more information about free trials and the supported instance specifications, see Time-limited one-month free trials of GA.
Overview of billing methods
GA instances support the pay-as-you-go and subscription billing methods.
The bandwidth that is used to connect to the global transmission network of Alibaba Cloud supports the pay-by-data-transfer and pay-by-bandwidth metering methods.
Pay-by-data-transfer: Data transfer fees are managed by Cloud Data Transfer (CDT). CDT supports the pay-as-you-go billing method.
You do not need to associate a basic bandwidth plan with your GA instance. The system calculates the fees based on where your service is deployed. The fees include Internet data transfer fees and inter-region data transfer fees. For more information, see Pay-by-data-transfer.
Pay-by-bandwidth: You are charged for bandwidth plans. Bandwidth plans support the subscription billing method.
If you use this metering method, you must associate a basic bandwidth plan with your GA instance. For more information about how to select a basic bandwidth plan, see the "Bandwidth plan type" section of the Select and purchase GA resources topic.
Instance billing method | Bandwidth metering method | Scenario |
Pay-by-data-transfer |
If you cannot estimate the resource usage and the amount of data transfer, we recommend that you use pay-as-you-go GA instances. | |
Pay-by-bandwidth |
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The first time you use a pay-as-you-go Global Accelerator instance, go to the pay-as-you-go GA activation page and activate GA as prompted.
You can purchase GA resource plans to offset the Capacity Unit (CU) fees and instance fees of pay-as-you-go GA instances. Resource plans are more cost-effective than the pay-as-you-go billing method. For more information, see GA resource plans.
You can select the billing method only when you purchase a GA instance. The billing method cannot be changed after a GA instance is created.
Billable items
Billable items of standard GA instances
Billable items of basic GA instances
Billing cycles
The following table describes the billing cycles of GA.
Billing cycle | Bill release time | Billable item |
Hourly | A bill is generated within 1 hour after the current billing cycle ends. The time when bills are generated is determined by the system. |
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Monthly | A bill is generated on the first day of the next calendar month after the end of a billing cycle. The time when bills are generated is determined by the system. |
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Pricing
Standard GA instances
The following tables show the pricing of billable items of standard GA instances in different billing methods.
Pay-as-you-go
Billable item | Pricing |
Instance fee and CU fee | You can use the GA (Pay-as-you-go) CU Calculator to estimate the instance fee and CU fee of a pay-as-you-go standard GA instance. |
Data transfer fee | The bills for data transfer fees are generated by CDT. For more information about CDT pricing, see Internet data transfers and Cross-region data transfers. |
GA resource plans | You can use GA resource plans to offset instance fees and CU fees. The prices on the buy page in the GA console shall prevail. |
Subscription
Billable item | Pricing |
Instance fee and specification fee | You can view the actual prices on the Create Standard Instance (Subscription) page of the GA console or on your bills. |
Bandwidth fee | Bandwidth plans are used to offset bandwidth fees. The prices of a basic bandwidth plan on the buy page in the GA console shall prevail. |
Basic GA instances
The following tables show the pricing of billable items of pay-as-you-go and subscription basic GA instances in different billing methods.
Pay-as-you-go
Billable item | Pricing |
Instance fee | You can view the actual instance fee on the Create Basic GA Instance page of the GA console or on your bills. |
Pay-by-data-transfer | The bills for data transfer fees are generated by CDT. For more information about CDT pricing, see Internet data transfers and Cross-region data transfers. |
GA resource plans | Instance fees can be offset by GA resource plans. You can view the actual price of the GA resource plan on the GA Resource Plans (International Site) buy page in the GA console. |
Subscription
Billable item | Pricing |
Instance fee | You can view the actual instance fee on the Create Basic GA Instance page of the GA console or on your bills. |
Bandwidth fee | Bandwidth plans are used to offset bandwidth fees. You can view the actual price of a basic bandwidth plan on the Global Accelerator Bandwidth Plan buy page in the GA console. |
References
Billing methods and rules
Pay-as-you-go GA instances
Subscription GA instances
More references
More references
Overdue payments
Overdue payments of pay-as-you-go GA instances
Instance billing method | Bandwidth metering method | Expiration and overdue payments | Renewal and top-up |
Pay-as-you-go | Pay-by-data-transfer | If your Alibaba Cloud account has overdue payments and bills for data transfer fees are not settled, you are notified by text message and email.
| If your Alibaba Cloud account has overdue payments, we recommend that you top up your account at the earliest opportunity.
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Overdue payments of subscription GA instances
Overdue payments of bandwidth plans
View the overdue amount
Log on to the Expenses and Costs console.
On the Account Overview page, you can view overdue payments.
View bills and usage details
On the Bill Details page, you can click the Consumption By Bill, Billing Details, and View Usage Details tabs to view the consumption and billing details. For more information, see Consumption by bill, Billing details, and Usage details.