PolarDB provides two billing methods for compute nodes: pay-as-you-go and subscription. A pricing plan is provided for each billing method. You can use storage plans together with the two billing methods.
Comparison
The following table describes the differences between the two billing methods.
Billing method | Description | Benefit | Scenario |
Pay-as-you-go | You are charged for the computing power that you use. Fees are deducted from your account on an hourly basis. | Flexible | Scenarios in which the workloads are light, infrequently change, and have small fluctuations. |
Subscription | You must pay for the computing power in advance when you create a cluster. | Cost-effective | Scenarios in which the workloads are heavy, infrequently change, and have small fluctuations. |
For information about the differences between the billing methods in terms of flexibility and price, see Comparison between the pay-as-you-go and subscription billing methods.
If you do not purchase a storage plan when you use one of the preceding two billing methods, you are charged based on the amount of storage space that is consumed by your data and the period of time for which the data is retained. To store a large amount of data, we recommend that you purchase storage plans to reduce storage costs. For more information, see the "Combination with storage plans" section in Billing method 1: pay-as-you-go.