This topic describes the billing methods for SAE, including free trials, pay-as-you-go, and resource plans. It also explains how to calculate costs and provides examples.
Cost calculation method
Single application
To understand how costs are calculated, let's start with the most basic scenario: a single application running in SAE. The cost is calculated as follows:
Calculate the Raw Resource Usage (VCPU Usage, Memory Usage, and Disk Usage). Resource usage duration is calculated in seconds. Any period of less than 1 second is rounded up to 1 second.
For billing purposes, SAE calculates CU Usage by converting Raw Resource Usage (VCPU Usage, Memory Usage, and Disk Usage) into CU (Cost Unit) Usage. The conversion formula is
CU usage = Raw resource usage × CU conversion coefficient. The CU conversion coefficient varies depending on the application version (Lightweight Edition, Standard Edition, or Professional Edition) , raw resource category, and server type (Default or HyGon).If the billing method is Resource plan (subscription), the CU usage is directly deducted from the CU resource plan. If the billing method is Pay-as-you-go (postpaid), the unit price for CU billing is shown in the following table. The prices are for reference only. The actual prices are specified in the commercial offer.
Multiple applications
In more complex scenarios, you may run multiple applications in SAE. The cost is calculated as follows:
Applications of the same version are billed together. Applications of different versions are billed separately.
For example, if your SAE runs several Lightweight Edition applications and Professional Edition applications at the same time, first calculate the total cost for the Lightweight Edition applications, and then calculate the total cost for the Professional Edition applications.
Calculate the Raw Resource Usage (VCPU Usage, Memory Usage, and Disk Usage). When calculating the duration of resource usage, any period of less than 1 second is counted as 1 second.
vCPU usage = ∑(Number of instances × CPU cores per instance × Runtime in the current month in seconds)Memory usage = ∑(Number of instances × Memory size per instance in GB × Runtime in the current month in seconds)Disk usage = ∑(Number of instances × (Disk size per instance in GiB - Free disk size of 20 GiB) × Runtime in the current month in seconds)
Calculate the CU Usage.
CU usage = ∑(Usage of each resource type × Corresponding CU conversion factor)
If the billing method is Resource plan (subscription), the CU usage is directly deducted from the CU resource plan. If the billing method is Pay-as-you-go (postpaid), the cost is calculated based on the CU unit price.
Total cost = CU usage × CU unit price
Billing methods
First, activate SAE. After activation, you can use the service and will be billed accordingly. SAE supports two billing methods: pay-as-you-go (postpaid) and resource plan (subscription).
Extra billable items
If your SAE application integrates with other Alibaba Cloud services, you will incur extra fees for services such as networking, storage, databases, middleware, logging, and observability.
When you delete an SAE application , SAE stops billing for it.
However, if your SAE application depends on other services, such as CLB (a load balancing service), these dependent services continue to incur fees.
To avoid unnecessary expenses, make sure to stop or delete these services when they are no longer needed and verify their status to ensure that billing has completely stopped.
Service type | Requirements and scenarios | Implementation | Billing reference |
Network | SAE applications need to be accessed from the internet (inbound traffic). | Access applications based on SAE Ingress (gateway routing): | |
Access applications based on SAE Service: | |||
SAE applications need to access the internet (outbound traffic). | Configure an Internet NAT gateway for the VPC associated with the SAE application | ||
Enable communication between microservice applications using a registry. | Implement service registration and discovery based on a registry such as Nacos | The built-in Nacos registry in SAE is free of charge. | |
Enable internal communication between applications. | Access applications based on SAE Ingress (gateway routing): | ||
Access applications based on SAE Service: | |||
Storage | Persistent storage for SAE application data | ||
Database | SAE application connects to a database service provided by Alibaba Cloud. | See the billing documentation for the specific database service. | |
Middleware | SAE Standard Edition and Professional Edition applications integrate with the microservice governance capabilities provided by MSE. | Professional Edition: Microservice governance is free of charge. Standard Edition: Microservice governance must be activated separately and is billed. | |
Log | Centralized collection and analysis of SAE application logs | ||
Observability | SAE Standard Edition and Professional Edition applications integrate with the capabilities of ARMS Premium Edition. | Professional Edition: ARMS advanced monitoring is free of charge. Standard Edition: ARMS advanced monitoring must be activated separately and is billed. |
View bills
View billing details
Log on to Expenses and Costs and go to the Monthly Bills Overview page to view your account's monthly consumption. You can switch accounts to view the summary of consumption for associated RAM users.
Go to the Billing Details page, click the corresponding tab, and then view your consumption details.
Billing Records: This section shows the consumption records of your account in hourly billing cycles. For example, if you continuously use SAE from 00:00 to 24:00 on August 1, 24 consumption records are displayed, corresponding to the consumption from 00:00 to 01:00, 01:00 to 02:00, and so on, up to 23:00 to 24:00.
ImportantSAE bill generation is delayed by approximately 2 hours. For example, you can view the consumption record of SAE from 13:00 to 14:00 in the Expenses and Costs console at about 16:00.
Billing Details: You can filter billing details by Statistic Item and Statistic Period. The details include product details, consumption type, billable item, price, and deduction information.
ImportantThe Instance ID in the billing details corresponds to your Application ID (① and ② in the figure) or Task Template ID. You can view and copy the target ID on the application details page or task template details page. Then, on the Billing Details tab, you can search for the bill for a single application or task template by Instance ID (③ in the figure).
The Billable Item (④ in the figure) indicates the billable items of the application or task template. You can reconcile your bill against your resource usage based on the billable item type.
The following is an example of an application ID.
View Usage Details: Follow the on-screen instructions to download usage information in CSV format.
View resource plan usage details
Log on to Expenses and Costs. Go to the Usage Details page of your resource plan, enter the specific resource instance name, and view the detailed deduction records of the resource plan.
SAE resource plans are decrementing. During the validity period, the plan's quota is consumed over time until it is exhausted or expires. Remaining quota after deduction = Remaining quota before deduction - Deducted amount, where the deducted amount is the amount of resources used by the instance in a specific time period.
You can also view the usage of your purchased CU resource plans in the Resource Plan area on the right side of the Overview Page.
Billing reconciliation FAQ
How do I reconcile SAE resource bills?
For more information, see View billing details and View resource plan usage details.
Why is SAE still being consumed on my bill after I stopped using the resources?
Assume that you used SAE resources from 13:00 to 14:00, stopped using them at 14:00, and immediately checked the Billing Records and Billing Details tabs. You find that SAE still has consumption records after 14:00.
This is normal because SAE bill generation is delayed by approximately 2 hours. Therefore, after you stop using SAE resources at 14:00, check the Billing Records tab at approximately 16:00 to view the billing details. You can also export the detailed data on the View Usage Details tab if needed.
Account deduction order
Credit limit for enterprise users.
Valid coupons in your Alibaba Cloud account.
Valid stored value cards in your Alibaba Cloud account.
Cash balance in your Alibaba Cloud account.
Balance of your linked Alipay account.
Bank card specified when you linked your Alipay account.
Other express-linked bank cards in your Alipay account.
Yu'e Bao balance of your linked Alipay account (You must enable the Yu'e Bao consumption deduction switch in Alipay).
The credit limit for enterprise users, valid coupons, and the cash balance in your Alibaba Cloud account are applied sequentially and cannot be used simultaneously for the same charge.
Overdue payments and renewals
When the available credit in your account (including your Alibaba Cloud account balance and coupons) is insufficient to pay an outstanding bill, your account immediately becomes overdue.
If you no longer need to use SAE, delete the related resources to avoid further charges:
To delete an SAE application, see Delete an application.
If your application integrates with other Alibaba Cloud services, you will incur extra fees for services such as networking, storage, databases, middleware, logging, and observability. Before you delete these resources, back up necessary data.
Overdue payments
Overdue duration | Description |
Overdue for less than 7 days | If your account is overdue for less than 7 days (7 × 24 = 168 hours), the application instances you have created remain active and will continue to be billed. When your SAE service is overdue, you cannot deploy or scale out new application instances, nor can you perform operations such as deployment, restart, or specification changes on existing instances. |
Overdue for more than 7 days | If you do not pay all overdue bills within 7 days (7 × 24 = 168 hours) from the date the payment becomes overdue, the system will suspend your SAE services at the end of this period. At the same time, the application instances you created in SAE are released, and their data is deleted and cannot be recovered. To ensure that your services are not affected, make the payment promptly. |
View consumption overview
Log on to Expenses and Costs.
On the Account Overview page, view the consumption overview.
Renewal policy
Log on to Expenses and Costs.
In the navigation pane on the left, click Payment Details. On the Payment Details page, on the Pending Payment tab, click Pay in the Actions column and follow the on-screen instructions to add funds.
