This topic describes the billing rules, billing items, and fee query methods of pay-as-you-go.
Billing method overview
Pay-as-you-go is the default billing method of STAROps and requires no prepayment. AI credit consumption and the digital employee duty service fee are metered and billed separately. This topic describes the rules, fee calculation, and query methods of the two billing items.
Billing items and unit prices
|
Billing item |
Unit |
Unit price |
Billable usage |
|
AI credit consumption (AI_Credit) |
Credit |
USD 0.0016 per credit |
The credits that remain after new customer credits, the monthly free quota, and AI credit resource plan offsets are deducted |
|
Digital employee duty service fee (Agent_Day) |
Digital employee × calendar day |
USD 3 per digital employee per calendar day |
The sum of the billable days of all custom digital employees. A period of less than one day is counted as one day. |
The intelligent O&M assistant (Ops Agent) provided by STAROps is not charged the digital employee duty service fee.
AI credit billing rules
Credit consumption reference
Intelligent O&M operations such as intelligent conversations and long-running tasks consume AI credits. The consumption of each task depends on the task complexity and model resource usage.
|
Feature |
Estimated consumption (credits per invocation) |
|
Intelligent Q&A |
About 30 |
|
Root cause analysis (RCA) |
About 200 |
|
Container inspection |
About 200 |
The preceding values are estimates. The actual consumption is subject to the credit usage details in the STAROps console.
Offsets by free credits and resource plans
AI credits are offset in the following priority order:
-
New customer credits: Eligible Alibaba Cloud accounts can obtain 10,000 credits at a time. The credits are valid for 31 days from activation, and unused credits are cleared after expiration.
-
Monthly free quota: Customers who have activated the service receive 2,500 credits each month. Unused credits in the current month are not carried over to the next month.
-
AI credit resource plans: When multiple resource plans exist, the plan closest to expiration is used first. Unused credits are cleared after expiration.
-
Pay-as-you-go: After the preceding credits are used up or expire, the remaining consumption is billed at USD 0.0016 per credit. No manual switching is required.
New customer credits are available to Alibaba Cloud accounts that have not claimed them. New customer credits and the monthly free quota can offset the credits consumed by STAROps intelligent O&M capabilities in the STAROps console, CloudMonitor (CMS) console, and Simple Log Service (SLS) console, excluding SLS Data Agent. Yunxiao AI Assistant does not share either type of quota.
Free credits and AI credit resource plans can offset only AI credit consumption, not the digital employee duty service fee. For details about free benefits and how to purchase resource plans, see Billing overview.
Digital employee duty service billing rules
Effective October 10, 2026, STAROps charges a duty service fee for custom digital employees based on the following rules:
|
Rule |
Description |
|
Pricing |
USD 3 per digital employee per calendar day. A period of less than one day is counted as one day. |
|
Billing start |
The duty service fee is incurred as soon as a custom digital employee is created. |
|
Billing stop |
No fees are incurred after the digital employee is deleted. Fees incurred before deletion are still settled based on the rules. |
|
Counting method |
Duty service days are counted separately for each custom digital employee, and the days of multiple digital employees are added up. |
|
Task credits |
AI credits consumed by tasks that digital employees run are still billed separately based on the existing credit rules. |
|
Exemption |
The intelligent O&M assistant provided by STAROps, Ops Agent, is exempt from the digital employee duty service fee. AI credits consumed by its tasks are still billed based on the existing rules. |
The duty service fee is incurred after a custom digital employee is created. A custom digital employee that does not run tasks is still billed based on the preceding rules.
Fee calculation and examples
Fee calculation
Within the same statistical period, pay-as-you-go fees are calculated based on the following formulas:
-
AI credit fee = Remaining credits after offsets × USD 0.0016 per credit.
-
Digital employee duty service fee = Sum of the billable days of all custom digital employees × USD 3 per digital employee per calendar day.
-
Total pay-as-you-go fee = AI credit fee + Digital employee duty service fee.
The total pay-as-you-go fee covers the two billing items. The prepaid amount of resource plans is paid through the corresponding orders.
Less than one calendar day
A custom digital employee is created and deleted on the same calendar day and runs no tasks during this period. The duty service lasts less than one day and is counted as one day:
Duty service fee = 1 × 3 = USD 3.
Cumulative billing for multiple digital employees
In a statistical period, custom digital employee A has 3 billable days and digital employee B has 2 billable days, which add up to 5 digital employee-days:
Duty service fee = (3 + 2) × 3 = USD 15.
AI credits consumed by tasks that the two digital employees run are calculated separately based on the credit rules.
Duty service fee and AI credits incurred at the same time
On a calendar day, two custom digital employees are each billed for one day, and the account consumes 500 credits on that day. Assume that the new customer credits and monthly free quota are used up, and no AI credit resource plan is available for offsets:
|
Fee component |
Calculation |
Fee |
|
AI credit fee |
500 × USD 0.0016 per credit |
USD 0.8 |
|
Digital employee duty service fee |
(1 + 1) × USD 3 |
USD 6 |
|
Total pay-as-you-go fee |
0.8 + 6 |
USD 6.8 |
If all 500 credits on that day are offset by free credits or resource plans, the pay-as-you-go AI credit fee is USD 0, and the total pay-as-you-go fee for that day is USD 6.
Billing cycle and settlement
AI credit consumption is billed daily: The system counts the credits consumed on the previous day every day. The credits that remain after free credits and resource plan offsets are deducted are charged at the unit price. A bill is generated the next day, and the amount is deducted from your Alibaba Cloud account balance.
The digital employee duty service fee is metered by calendar day: The billable days from creation to deletion are counted separately for each custom digital employee and then added up to calculate the fee.
For information about how resource plan expiration and overdue payments are handled, see Resource plan expiration and overdue payments.
Usage and bill queries
-
Credit usage: Log on to the STAROps console to view the details of AI credit consumption.
-
Bills: Log on to the Alibaba Cloud Expense Center to view the bill details and deduction records of AI credit consumption and the digital employee duty service fee.
When you check fees, view the billable usage after AI credit offsets and the billable days of custom digital employees separately. Ops Agent is exempt from the duty service fee, but the AI credits consumed by its tasks are still included in credit usage.
To control credit consumption, see Quota management to set a monthly credit limit. The duty service fee of custom digital employees is calculated based on the billable days from creation to deletion.
References
-
Billing overview: billing scope, billing methods, free benefits, and resource plan purchase.