Model Studio offers savings plans and resource plans to help you reduce model costs.
Plan selection
Use this guide to select the right plan.
AI General-purpose Savings Plan (Recommended): Commit to a monthly spending amount in exchange for tiered discounts of up to 47%. This plan applies to all models and offers maximum flexibility, making it the best choice for most use cases.
Savings plans for other models: Purchase a fixed amount upfront to offset call fees for specific model families. This option applies only to select model families (such as the speech model family) and typically offers smaller discounts than the AI General-purpose Savings Plan.
To maximize cost-effectiveness, start with the AI General-purpose Savings Plan.
AI general-purpose savings plan
Key benefits
The AI General-purpose Savings Plan offers discounts on pay-as-you-go model calls. Commit to a monthly spend for a set term (3, 6, 12, or 24 months) to receive tiered discounts while keeping pay-as-you-go flexibility.
Comprehensive coverage: A single purchase covers all models .
Significant cost optimization: Higher spending commitments and longer terms unlock discounts of up to 47%.
Simple management: The plan takes effect immediately or at a scheduled time after purchase. Discounts apply automatically without manual activation or binding. Auto-renewal is available.
Usage
Effective time: You can choose when the plan takes effect: "Immediately after ordering" or "Specified time (by hour)".
Calling methods: Model Studio console playground, API calls, and integration with third-party tools (such as Cursor and Cline, using pay-as-you-go API credentials).
Commitment cycle: The plan operates on a rolling monthly cycle starting from the effective date. Each cycle runs from the effective date to the same date one month later — this is not a calendar-month reset on the 1st of each month. The quota refreshes to its full amount on the day after the purchase date each month. Note the following rules:
Monthly allocation: The total quota is distributed evenly across months and is not granted as a lump sum. For example, a 3-month Savings Plan with a USD 1,000 monthly commitment provides a new USD 1,000 quota each month, not a total of USD 3,000 upfront.
No rollover: Any unused quota at the end of a monthly cycle expires automatically and cannot carry over to the next cycle.
Coverage:
Covered usage: Fees for model calls (input and output tokens), model-native tool calling (such as function call and web extractor), context cache, and batch inference.
Not covered: Fees for model fine-tuning and model deployment. Web search plugin fees are billed independently and are not covered by the savings plan. Third-party tools can integrate with Model Studio, but any web search fees they generate are not covered by the savings plan.
Embedding and reranking model call fees incurred through Knowledge Base (RAG) usage are classified as Category A model calls and are covered by the AI General-purpose Savings Plan. However, Knowledge Base specification fees (instance running duration) are resource fees, not model call fees, and are not covered by any savings plan. You can pay specification fees through Knowledge Base resource plans or on a pay-as-you-go basis.
Deduction logic:
Deduction order: free quota > other model-specific Savings Plans > AI General-purpose Savings Plan > pay-as-you-go.
Multiple Savings Plans of the same type: The plan expiring first is applied first. If the expiration dates are the same, the plan purchased first is applied first.
Excess usage: If all matching Savings Plans expire or are exhausted, any remaining usage is billed at pay-as-you-go rates.
If you have enabled the Stop when free quota is exhausted feature (also referred to as worry-free mode or Use free quota only) for a model, the service stops automatically when your free quota is used up. No pay-as-you-go charges are incurred, which prevents the savings plan from applying. To resume savings plan deductions, manually disable this feature after your free quota is exhausted.
View bills: See How to query Savings Plan bills.
Purchase guide
Purchase | |
Regions | Singapore, US (Virginia), China (Beijing), Germany (Frankfurt), Japan (Tokyo) and Hong Kong (China) |
Eligible services | Discounts vary by tier.
|
Monthly spend commitment | The amount you commit to spend each month on pay-as-you-go model services. Start at USD 150 in increments of USD 5. No upper limit. |
Commitment cycle | You can choose a commitment cycle of 3, 6, 12, or 24 months. |
Offering type |
|
Discounts | See Discount information. |
Activation time | You can activate the plan immediately after purchase or schedule it to start at a specific hour. |
Discount
Discounts vary by model, commitment tier, term, and payment method.
For example, when paid all upfront, a 12-month Savings Plan with a monthly spend commitment of USD 10,000 provides a 24% discount on calls to the Category A Qwen text generation model. A model call that costs USD 1 uses only USD 0.76 of your commitment.
The commitment ranges in the following tables are inclusive of the lower bound and exclusive of the upper bound. For example, 1,000 - 5,000 means an amount greater than or equal to 1,000 and less than 5,000.
Payment option | Monthly commitment range (USD) | Category A | Category B | Category C | ||||||
3 months | 6 months | 12 months | 24 months | 3 months | 6 months | 12 months | 24 months | Entire cycle | ||
All upfront | 150 - 700 | 12% off | 14% off | 16% off | 18% off | 17% off | 20% off | 23% off | 26% off | No discount |
700 - 1,500 | 14% off | 16% off | 18% off | 20% off | 20% off | 23% off | 26% off | 29% off | No discount | |
1,500 - 4,500 | 16% off | 18% off | 20% off | 22% off | 23% off | 26% off | 29% off | 32% off | No discount | |
4,500 - 7,000 | 18% off | 20% off | 22% off | 24% off | 26% off | 29% off | 32% off | 35% off | No discount | |
7,000 - 15,000 | 20% off | 22% off | 24% off | 26% off | 29% off | 32% off | 35% off | 38% off | No discount | |
15,000 - 45,000 | 22% off | 24% off | 26% off | 28% off | 32% off | 35% off | 38% off | 41% off | No discount | |
45,000 - 150,000 | 24% off | 26% off | 28% off | 30% off | 35% off | 38% off | 41% off | 44% off | No discount | |
≥150,000 | 26% off | 28% off | 30% off | 32% off | 38% off | 41% off | 44% off | 47% off | No discount | |
No upfront Contact your account manager to enable this option. | 150 - 700 | 10% off | 12% off | 14% off | 16% off | 15% off | 18% off | 21% off | 24% off | No discount |
700 - 1,500 | 12% off | 14% off | 16% off | 18% off | 18% off | 21% off | 24% off | 27% off | No discount | |
1,500 - 4,500 | 14% off | 16% off | 18% off | 20% off | 21% off | 24% off | 27% off | 30% off | No discount | |
4,500 - 7,000 | 16% off | 18% off | 20% off | 22% off | 24% off | 27% off | 30% off | 33% off | No discount | |
7,000 - 15,000 | 18% off | 20% off | 22% off | 24% off | 27% off | 30% off | 33% off | 36% off | No discount | |
15,000 - 45,000 | 20% off | 22% off | 24% off | 26% off | 30% off | 33% off | 36% off | 39% off | No discount | |
45,000 - 150,000 | 22% off | 24% off | 26% off | 28% off | 33% off | 36% off | 39% off | 42% off | No discount | |
≥150,000 | 24% off | 26% off | 28% off | 30% off | 36% off | 39% off | 42% off | 45% off | No discount | |
Lifecycle management
You can manage your savings plans on the Savings Plan Overview page.
Savings plan renewal
Sign in to the Expenses and Costs console. In the left-side navigation pane, choose to view and manage the subscription status, effective date, and auto-renewal settings of your savings plan.
Query discounts
For the AI General-purpose Savings Plan, discounts vary by model, tier, commitment period, and payment method. Go to the Savings Plan Price Discount Details page and filter by the following criteria:
Applicable Commodity: Select the corresponding product name from the table below.
Billing Item: Select the corresponding billed item from the table below.
Savings plan type: Select AI General-purpose Savings Plan/Model Studio AI General-purpose Savings Plan
Subscription duration and payment method: Select the corresponding options to view the pay-as-you-go discount.
Applicable Commodity | Billing Item |
Model Studio foundation model inference |
and the corresponding regional usage for each billed item. When querying discounts on call fees in Singapore, select a non-regional billed item. When querying discounts in other regions, select the corresponding regional billed item. |
Model Studio foundation model - Industry-specific model | Text generation token usage |
Model Studio foundation model - Vector model | Multimodal vector model usage |
Model Studio foundation model - Qwen-Audio model | Speech synthesis character count and speech recognition duration |
Model Studio foundation model - Model Studio audio model | Speech synthesis character count and speech recognition duration |
Query bills
Go to the Expenses and Costs console. In the left-side navigation pane, choose Bills > Bill Details. Set Product to Alibaba Cloud Model Studio and Product Name to AI General-purpose Savings Plan. By default, bill details for the current month are displayed. See Query bills of savings plans.
Other model savings plans
FAQ
Savings plan not applying
A savings plan applies to your usage costs only when specific conditions are met. Common reasons include:
Model mismatch: The model you are calling is not covered by the savings plan. For example, you purchased an LLM Savings Plan but are calling a Wan model, or an embedding or reranking model.
Free quota not exhausted: The system applies benefits in the order of free quota > savings plan. A savings plan applies only to charges incurred after your free quota is exhausted.
Does the LLM Savings Plan cover embedding and reranking models?
No. The LLM inference savings plan covers only text generation models. Embedding and reranking models are not covered. If your workload involves both LLMs and embedding or reranking models (for example, RAG), consider the AI General-purpose Savings Plan.