How to query model inference bills, allocate costs, settle overdue payments, and stop billing - Alibaba Cloud Model Studio

This topic describes how to query billing details, analyze bills, and stop billing.

Query bills

Bills are generated only after a call is completed. Bills for model inference are generated with minute-level granularity, typically within 2 to 10 minutes. Bills for services such as batch inference, model training, and knowledge base are generated hourly. During peak business hours, the time displayed in the system is considered the final billing time.

Cost overview

Log on to the Model Studio console. Click the Dashboard tab at the top. In the left-side navigation pane, choose Usage & Billing > Cost overview, then select a billing month.

This page displays costs for model inference only. To view costs for services such as model training and knowledge base, see Billing Details.

View total consumption and breakdown: The top of the page shows the Total amount for the month, broken down into Subscription (such as Token Plan and Coding Plan) and Bill (for pay-as-you-go model calls and training). Click View details on the Subscription or Bill card to view itemized costs. The Bill trend chart below displays only pay-as-you-go amounts and excludes prepaid subscription fees. When viewing data for the current month, the Bill amount is typically updated first, while the Bill trend chart may lag slightly.
Query costs by model or API Key: In the Bill trend section, select a target model from the Model drop-down list or filter by API Key ID, then switch to the List view. The Payable amount column in the List view shows the cumulative monthly cost for the selected item.
Compare spending trends: Set Grouping to Category and compare the spending trends for model inference and training on a Daily or Monthly basis.
Set billing alerts: On the Bill card, click Edit next to Bill alert. In the Usage limit & alerts panel, enable a monthly limit, set a threshold, and configure email notification. You are notified when your spending reaches the threshold. This helps you avoid service interruptions caused by overdue payments.

Billing details

Bills for large model inference and training can be broken down for review by API Key ID, workspace ID, model name, input/output type, invocation channel.

1. Download the bill

On the Billing Details page, select a billing period.
Select Product as Alibaba Cloud Model Studio, and click Search.
In the upper-right corner of the bill list, click the Export Bill CSV to download the bill.
Open the file, locate the Instance ID column, and interpret it using the rules described in the next section.

2. Interpret key fields

The "Instance ID" field contains multiple pieces of information separated by semicolons (;).

Example: text_token;llm-xxx;qwen-max;output_token;app
This represents the following information in order: billing type;workspace ID;model name;input/output type;invocation channel

3. Data traceability and terms

Query API Key: Copy the ApiKeyID from your bill and go to the Model Studio API Key Management page to find the corresponding key name.
Query workspace: Copy the workspace ID from your bill. Go to the Workspaces page to identify the specific workspace.
Invocation channel descriptions:
- app: A call made from an application (via code).
- bmp: A call made from the Playground in the console.
- assistant-api: A call made via the Assistant API.

Stop billing

If you no longer use Model Studio, follow the instructions below to stop the related services and prevent further charges.

Stop model inference: Stop making API calls from your code and stop using the Playground in the console to prevent further charges. To prevent accidental calls, you can delete your keys on the API-KEY page.
Stop model training: You are not charged when no model training tasks are running.
Cancel a Coding Plan subscription: Coding Plan is a monthly subscription product that automatically stops at the end of the subscription period. Mid-term cancellation and refunds are not supported. If you have auto-renewal enabled, disable it on the Coding Plan page.
Unsubscribe from Token Plan Team Edition: On the My Subscriptions page of the Token Plan console, you can unsubscribe seats that have not been used, and a refund is issued to the original payment account. If you do not want to renew your subscription, disable auto-renewal.

FAQ

Why can't I find a bill after calling a model?

Cause:

Billing latency: Model inference bills are aggregated by the minute and typically appear 2 to 10 minutes after a call. Bills for batch inference, model training, and knowledge base are aggregated hourly. Bill generation may be further delayed during peak hours.
Use of a non-commercial model: Models in public preview or invite-only testing do not generate billing records.

Solution: Wait for the billing interval to pass and then check again.

Why does the same model have multiple entries in my bill?

Cause: The same model is billed separately based on the billing type (such as input tokens, output tokens, or cache hits) and the invocation channel (such as an API call or console experience). For example, a single API call to qwen3.6-plus generates two entries: one for "input tokens" and one for "output tokens".

Solution: Use the Instance ID field in Billing Details to understand the specifics of each line item.

Many bill entries are named "Large Model Text Consumption". How do I identify the model for each entry?

Cause: The "Billable Item" column on the bill is uniformly labeled "Large Model Text Consumption" and does not show the specific model name.

Solution: Check the Instance ID (Billing Granularity) column on the Billing Details page. This field is a semicolon-separated string. The part of the string that immediately follows the workspace ID (such as llm-xxx) is the model name. For example, in 12xxx;llm-xxx;qwen3.6-plus;context_0-128k_input_token;bmp;0, the model is qwen3.6-plus.

Where can I view model call counts and statistics?

Go to the Alibaba Cloud Model Studio console, select the target region in the upper-right corner. Click the Dashboard tab at the top. In the left-side navigation pane, choose Usage & Billing > Model usage.

Is pay-as-you-go billed in real time?

No. Alibaba Cloud uses a "reserve and settle monthly" model for pay-as-you-go billing. The system reserves an amount from your available balance to cover usage, and then generates a final bill and deducts the actual cost at the end of the billing cycle (early in the next month).

Why do I have an overdue payment even though I have barely used the service?

Reason: Additional features of Model Studio, such as web search, are billed separately (post-paid) based on the number of calls and are invoiced separately from model inference fees. Even if you have not actively used the console recently, if the enable_search parameter is enabled in applications or code that you created in the past, web search fees are still incurred for each call.

Solution:

In Billing Details, filter for Alibaba Cloud Model Studio and check the Instance ID (Billing Granularity) column to identify the model name and invocation channel that incurred the cost.
Check whether enable_search is enabled in your application code or Model Studio application configuration. If you no longer need web search, set this parameter to false or remove it.
If you have stopped all calls but are still being charged, check if other API keys or applications are still running. You can find and delete unused keys on the API Key Management page.