You can analyze and reconcile your costs by viewing monthly bills and detailed spending records.
How bills are generated
Bills are generated based on the billing method of your cloud products:
Subscription (pay before you use): You pay for resources, such as subscriptions, savings plans, or resource plans, at the time of purchase. This cost appears in the bill for the month of purchase.
Pay-as-you-go (use before you pay): You first use resources, such as pay-as-you-go ECS instances. The system then calculates fees based on your usage over a billing cycle—such as hourly, daily, or monthly—and records them in the bill for that cycle.
For more information, see Billing methods.
Cloud products are billed based on actual usage, and metering granularity varies by product. Bills are generated at fixed billing cycles. For example, if a resource is released mid-cycle, the bill still covers the full cycle, but charges reflect only actual consumption. Pay-as-you-go bills are typically generated with a delay of several hours. For specific rules, see the billing documentation for each product.
Bill types and generation times
The Alibaba Cloud billing feature provides the following information. The bill for the current month is updated in real time. However, the final data is available only after the bill is generated for the following month.
Type | Purpose | Generation Time | Access Link |
Monthly Bill | View the total amount payable for the current month. You can export a spending summary PDF as a credential for reconciliation and settlement. | 12:00 on the 3rd day of the next month | |
Billing Details | View detailed spending for each resource for cost verification and analysis. You can export the details as a CSV file. | 12:00 on the 3rd day of the next month | |
Split Bill Details | Split bills by department or project for internal management. This is used for internal cost allocation and budget management, not as a basis for settlement. | 12:00 on the 4th day of the next month |
The new version of the Expenses and Costs console is currently available for invitational preview to select users. The console automatically redirects you to your currently selected version. To access the other version, you can switch to it manually within the console.
Scenarios for viewing bills
Log on to the Alibaba Cloud Management Console and navigate to Billing > Billing Statement to view your expenses.
The Alibaba Cloud account has access permissions by default.
RAM users must be granted the AliyunBSSReadOnlyAccess policy, which provides read-only access to the Fee Hub.
Billing Details are available in two versions: Legacy and Upgraded. You can identify the version you are using by the page style.
The Upgraded Billing Details page is being rolled out to users through an invitational preview. If your account is enabled for the upgraded version, you can view bill data only from the date of enablement onward. To query historical billing details, switch back to the legacy version.
The main improvements in the upgraded version are as follows:
New features: The upgraded version adds resource-level cost analysis and bill subscription. With bill subscription, you can configure automatic delivery of bills to Object Storage Service (OSS) or MaxCompute directly from the console.
Field information: The upgraded version includes additional fields such as Discount Details, Coupon Deduction Details, Deduction Duration, Usage Details, List Price Tier, and Usage Tier Accumulation Rule. Some fields have been removed or adjusted, and all fields are now grouped logically.
The following table compares the Upgraded Billing Details and Legacy Billing Details pages.
Upgraded version:
| Legacy version:
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The Legacy Expenses and Costs console does not support upgraded bills.
View monthly bill summaries
Legacy Console
Go to User Center - Billing Overview to view your spending summary by billing cycle (that is, billing month). You can also switch accounts to view the spending summary for associated financial sub-accounts.
The page displays the following information:
The monthly bill for the selected account. This is the bill data for actual settlement with Alibaba Cloud.
The spending trend (last 6 months) and product spending distribution (by billing cycle) for the selected account.
New console
On the Bill Overview page, you can view overall expenses, bill summaries, verify discounts, make repayments, or export bills.
In the monthly summary area, note the following key information:
Amount Payable: The final amount you need to pay for cloud resources for the month. This amount reflects all applicable discounts, subscription deductions (such as savings plans), and coupon deductions. The formula is:
Amount Payable = List Price - Discount Amount - Coupon Deduction - Rounding Adjustment.Amount Paid: The amount already paid, including payments made with cash, prepaid cards, and other payment methods.
Amount Outstanding: The remaining unpaid balance. That is: Amount Outstanding = Amount Payable - Amount Paid.
On the Bill Overview page, you can view summarized bill data by different dimensions. Select a dimension tab and filter the data by Billing Month:
Dimension | Scenario |
Purchase Accounts by Resource | Use this for cost allocation and budget management in multi-account scenarios. You can view the amount payable and payment status for each account to identify high-spending accounts. |
By Product | Use this to understand which cloud products are generating costs. You can compare the amount payable for different products to identify high-cost products. |
By Organization (Enterprise accounts only) | Use this for organization-level cost management in multi-account enterprise scenarios. You can view the amount payable for each organization. |
By Service Entity | Use this to reconcile bills for different service entities. You can view the amount payable for each service entity. Different entities must be reconciled separately. |
By Discount Status | Use this to evaluate the effectiveness of your discounts. You can compare the list price and the amount payable to understand the discount impact. Pay close attention to bills that did not receive a discount. |
View daily billing details
Legacy Console
On the Billing Details page, set Statistical Period to By Day.
Click Search. In the billing details, view Product Details, Usage, and Discounted Amount to understand the usage and costs for that day, aggregated by billable item, instance, product, finance, and cost center.
Click the Customize Columns button on the right to customize the columns displayed in the bill.
New console
On the Bill Details page, filter by date to view your daily spending.
Legacy bill
On the Bill Details page, set Group By to Billing Item or Instance.
Set Statistical Period to Day to view daily summaries or Details to view hourly details. Select a Billing Month.
Click Query. In the billing details, focus on Product Name and Amount Payable to understand your daily spending.
Upgraded bill
On the Bill Details page, click the Bill Date filter, select Daily, and set the Start Date and End Date to the same day (for example: 2025-10-15).
Click Query. In the billing details, view Product Information, Usage Information, and Payable Information to understand the usage and costs of each cloud product for that day.
Click the 
button on the right to customize the columns displayed in the bill.
View product billing details
Legacy Console
On the Billing Details page, enter or select a product name (such as "Elastic Compute Service" or "Object Storage Service") in the Product or Product Details filter box.
Select a Billing Cycle (Billing Month) and click Search.
Click the Customize Columns button on the right to customize the columns displayed in the bill.
New console
On the Billing Details page, filter by Product Name to view all consumption details for the product.
Legacy bill
On the Bill Details page, set the Statistics Item to Billing Item or Instance.
Set Statistical Period to Day or Details. In the filter conditions, select a Product Name and Billing Month, then click Query.
Upgraded bill
On the Bill Details page, enter or select a product name (such as “Elastic Compute Service (ECS)” or “Object Storage Service (OSS)”) in the Product Name filter box.
Select a Billing Month and click Query.
Click the button on the right side of the page to customize the columns displayed in the bill.
View bills for multiple enterprise accounts
Legacy Console
In an enterprise finance scenario where multiple accounts are managed within the same organization, the enterprise account can view the bills of its member accounts by filtering by Account on the Billing Overview and Billing Details pages.
New console
In a multi-account enterprise scenario, an enterprise administrator (MA) can view the bills of member accounts on the Billing Overview and Billing Details pages by filtering by Enterprise/Organization/Account.
Reconcile bill charges
Legacy Console
When verifying cloud resource fees, you can calculate the pretax amount payable in Billing Details using the following formula:
Amount Payable (Pretax) = List Price - Discount Amount - Coupon Deduction - Savings Plan Gross Deduction.
List Price: Also known as the official list price, this is the original spending amount calculated based on the list price.
Discount Amount: The discount amount generated from contract discounts or official website promotions.
Coupon Deduction: The amount deducted by coupons.
Savings Plan Gross Deduction: The gross list price of pay-as-you-go cloud resources covered by a savings plan.
After calculating the Amount Payable (Pretax), verify the accuracy of the Amount Payable (in payment currency) in the Monthly Bill Overview. The Amount Payable (in payment currency) is usually less than or equal to the calculated Amount Payable (Pretax). This is because of rounding, where amounts from the 3rd to the 10th decimal place are discarded. You can confirm the specific amount by clicking View Details for the Monthly Bill Overview entry.
New console
When reconciling cloud resource charges, verify the List Price, Savings Plan List Price Deduction, Discount Amount, and Coupon Deduction fields. Then, check the Amount Payable using the following formula:
Amount Payable = List Price - Savings Plan List Price Deduction - Discount Amount - Coupon Deduction
Reconciliation process | Console display |
Reconcile the List Price The List Price is the sum of the public standard prices for the selected resource configurations, without any discounts.
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Check discount application
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Reconcile coupon usage
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Reconcile savings plan deductions
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Reconcile resource plan deductions
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After completing the above checks, substitute the List Price, Savings Plan Deduction, Discount Amount, and Coupon Deduction into the formula to verify the accuracy of the Amount Payable on the bill.