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Expenses and Costs:View and analyze bills

Last Updated:Jul 03, 2026

View monthly bills and cost details for analysis and reconciliation.

How bills are generated

Bills are generated based on the billing method for your cloud products:

  • Subscription (pay before you use): You pay for resources such as subscriptions, savings plans, and resource plans at the time of purchase. The cost is added to that month's bill.

  • Pay-as-you-go (use before you pay): You use resources first, such as pay-as-you-go ECS instances. The system calculates fees based on usage over a billing cycle (hourly, daily, or monthly) and adds them to that month's bill.

Learn about billing methods.

Note

Cloud products are billed based on actual usage, and metering granularity varies by product. Bills are generated for a fixed billing cycle. If you release a resource mid-cycle, the bill still spans the full cycle but only includes charges for actual usage. Pay-as-you-go bills are typically available after a delay of several minutes to a few hours. For specific rules, refer to the billing documentation for each product.

Bill types and generation times

The current month's bill is updated in real time but finalized only after the following month's bill is generated.

Note

All times on your bills, including the bill month, bill date, and consumption time, are in UTC+8 (Beijing Time). You may need to convert these times to your local time zone.

Type

Description

Generation time

Link

Monthly bill

View the total amount payable for the month. You can export a spending summary PDF for reconciliation, settlement.

12:00 on the 3rd of the following month

Overview of Monthly Bill

Billing details

View detailed charges for each resource for cost verification and analysis. You can export the details as a CSV file.

12:00 on the 3rd of the following month

Bill Details

Split bill

Split bills by department or project for internal cost allocation and budget management. This information is for internal use only and cannot be used for settlement.

12:00 on the 4th of the following month

Split Bill

View bills

Log on to the Alibaba Cloud console. In the upper-right corner, choose Expenses > Bills to view your spending.

Note
  • The main account has access by default.

  • A RAM user must have the AliyunBSSReadOnlyAccess policy (read-only access to Billing Management).

The Bill Details page is available in two versions: legacy and new. You can identify the version by its page style.

Bill version details

The new Bill Details page is rolling out by invitation. You can view bill data only from the date it was enabled for your account. To query earlier bill details, switch back to the legacy version.

Key improvements in the new version include:

  • New features: Cost Details (resource-level cost analysis) and bill subscription (automatically pushes bills to OSS or MaxCompute).

  • Field information: Adds Discount Details, Coupon Deduction Details, Deduction Duration, Usage Details, List Price Usage Tiers, and Cumulative Usage Tier Rules. Some fields have been removed or adjusted, and all fields are now grouped.

The following table compares the new and legacy Bill Details pages.

New version:

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Legacy version:

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Note

The legacy Expenses and Costs console does not include the new bill version.

Differences and field descriptions for the new bill version.

View monthly bill summaries

Legacy console

Go to Expenses and Costs> Overview of Monthly Bill to view your spending summary by billing cycle. You can also switch accounts to view member account summaries.

The page displays:

  • The monthly bill for the selected account, reflecting the final settlement with Alibaba Cloud.

  • The spending trend over the last six months and product-specific spending distribution for the selected account.

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New console

On the Overview of Monthly Billpage, you can view your overall spending, review bill summaries, verify discounts, make payments, or export bills.

In the monthly summary area, note the following key information:

  • Payable Amount (Payment Currency): The amount payable for cloud resources in the billing period before tax, after all discounts, subscription offsets (for example, savings plans), and coupon deductions.

  • Tax (Payment Currency): Tax calculated on the Payable Amount (Payment Currency) based on the country/region and applicable tax rate.

  • After-tax Amount (Payment Currency): The final total payable for the billing period, including tax.

  • Paid Amount: The total amount that you have paid, including payments made with cash and prepaid cards.

  • OutStanding Amount: The outstanding amount that you have not paid. Formula: OutStanding Amount = After-tax Amount (Payment Currency)- Paid Amount.

On the Overview of Monthly Bill page, you can view bill summary data by different dimensions. Select a dimension tab and filter the summary data by Billing Month:

Dimension

Use case

By Resource Purchase Account

View the amount payable and payment status per account to identify high-spending accounts in multi-account scenarios.

By Product

Compare amounts payable across products to identify which cloud products drive the most cost.

By Organization

(enterprise accounts only)

View the amount payable per organization in multi-account enterprise scenarios.

By Service Entity

View the amount payable per service entity for separate reconciliation.

By The Status Of Hit Discounts

Compare list price vs. amount payable to evaluate discount effectiveness. Pay attention to bills not eligible for discounts.

View daily bill details

Legacy console

  1. On the Bill Details page, set Statistic Period to By Day.

  2. Click Search. In the bill details, view Product Detail, Usage, and Amount After Discount to understand the usage and costs for the day, aggregated by billable item, instance, product, and financial unit.

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Click the Customize Column Options 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 bills

  1. On the Bill Details page, set Statistic Item to Billing Item or Instance.

  2. Set Statistic Period to Day to view daily summaries or Billing Period to view hourly details, then select a Billing Month.

  3. Click Search. In the bill details, check Product Name and Amount Payable to understand your daily spending.

New bills

  1. On the Bill Details page, click the Bill Generation Date filter, select statistics by day, then set the From and To to the same day, such as 2025-10-15.

  2. Click Search. In the bill details, view Product Information, Usage Information, and Payable Information to understand the usage and costs of each cloud product for the day.

Click the image icon on the right to customize the displayed columns.

Why does an instance with zero usage show a payable amount?

In Bill Details, consumption amounts are settled at the bill level (by bill number). To provide more granular cost analysis, the system reverse-amortizes the total payable amount of each bill down to individual instances and billable items.

During this reverse-amortization process, to maintain amount precision (two decimal places), situations may arise where values are non-divisible or require rounding. The system assigns any remaining fractional amount to a randomly selected instance or billable item. In extreme cases, the following anomalies may occur:

  • An instance shows zero usage and zero list price, but a non-zero payable amount.

  • When the correct discount is applied, both the list price and discount amount are correct, but the payable amount has a minor discrepancy compared to the expected calculation.

These anomalies result from the algorithmic logic used during reverse-amortization and do not affect your actual total charges. We recommend that you reconcile your costs at the bill number level, where the amounts are accurate.

For information about the Rounded-down Fee that appears during end-of-month settlement, see Alibaba Cloud bill field adjustments.

View cloud product bill details

Legacy console

  1. On the Bill Details page, enter or select a product name such as ECS or OSS in the Product or Product Details filter box.

  2. Select a Billing Cycle (Billing Month) and click Search.

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Click the Customize Column Options button on the right to customize the columns displayed in the bill.

New console

On the Bill Details page, filter by Product Name to view all spending details for a product.

Legacy bills

  1. On the Bill Details page, set Statistic Item to Billing Item or Instance.

  2. Set Statistical Period to Day or Details, select a Product Name and Billing Month, then click Search.

New bills

  1. On the Bill Details page, enter or select a product name such as ECS or OSS in the Product Name filter box.

  2. Select a Billing Month and click Search.

Click the image icon on the right to customize the displayed columns.

Bills for enterprise accounts

Legacy console

In enterprises that manage multiple accounts, the management account can view the bills of its member accounts by filtering by Account on the Overview of Monthly Bill and Bill Details pages.

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New console

In a multi-account enterprise scenario, a management account (MA) can view the bills of its member accounts on the Overview of Monthly Bill and Bill Details pages by filtering by Enterprise/Organization/Account.

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Verify bill costs

Legacy console

When you reconcile your cloud resource bill on the Bill Details page, use the following formula to calculate the Amount Payable (Before Tax):

Amount Payable (Before Tax) = list price - discount amount - coupon deduction - Savings Plans Deduction (List Price).

  • list price: The original cost of usage, calculated based on the standard rate. It is also known as the catalog price.

  • discount amount: The discount from contractual agreements or official promotions.

  • coupon deduction: The amount deducted by a coupon.

  • Savings Plans Deduction (List Price): The total list price of pay-as-you-go cloud resources covered by Savings Plans.

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After calculating the Overview of Monthly Bill, verify the Amount Payable (Payment Currency) on the Overview of Monthly Bill page. This amount is typically less than or equal to the calculated pre-tax amount due to a View Details that truncates values from the 3rd to the 10th decimal place. To confirm the exact amount, click View Details for the relevant entry on the Overview of Monthly Bill page.

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New console

To verify bill costs, check the Catalogue Gross Amount , Catalogue Gross Amount Deducted by Savings Plan, Discount Amount, and Deducted Amount by Coupons fields and use this formula to verify the Tax-inclusive Payable Amount:

Amount Payable = List Price - Savings Plan Deduction (List Price) - discount amount - coupon deduction amount

Reconciliation process

Console display

Verify the Catalogue Gross Amount

The List Price is the total undiscounted price for the selected resource configurations.

  1. On the Bill Details page, view the usage details.

  2. Verify the list price by applying the billing formula to the resource's usage, duration, and unit price.

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Verify Invoice Discount application

  1. On the Overview of Monthly Billpage, switch to the By The Status Of Hit Discounts tab.

  2. Click View Details to view an overview of Hit the Discount.

  3. On the Hit the Discount page, view the details of the applied discount.

  4. On the Missed Discount tab, click View Details to go to the Discount Reconciliation page and view the View Cause.

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Verify coupon usage

  1. On the Bill Details page, check the Deducted Amount by Coupons column to see the total amount deducted by coupons in your usage details.

  2. In the new bill version, click Details next to Coupon Deduction Details to view the applied coupon's ID, face value, and deduction amount.

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Verify Savings Plan deductions

  1. On the Bill Details page, check the Catalogue Gross Amount Deducted by Savings Plan or Prepaid Purchase Offset from Total List Price column to view the total amount deducted by your Savings Plan in your usage details.

  2. In the new bill version, click Details in the Subscription Discount Details column for more information about the Savings Plan deduction.

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Verify resource plan deductions

  1. On the Bill Details page, view the Deducted Amount by Resource Plan or Deducted Usage, which is the usage amount covered by a resource plan.

  2. When calculating the list price in the usage details, you need to consider the resource usage. Usage = Usage before deduction - Deducted Usage or Deducted Amount by Resource Plan.

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After verifying these values, substitute the Catalogue Gross Amount , Amount Offset, discount amount, and Deducted Amount by Coupons into the formula to verify the Tax-inclusive Payable Amount.

FAQ

Multiple billing records for a single instance

A single instance may have multiple line items because:

  • Separate metering for input and output: Model Studio inference meters input and output tokens separately. Verify by checking the "resource instance ID" or "instance ID (for billing granularity)" field.

  • Different billing items: Batch and non-batch calls are separate billing items. Multimodal and text consumption are also separate. Verify by checking the "billing item" or "billing item name" field.

  • Different billing cycles: Starting from 10:00:00 on November 6, 2025, the billing cycle for Model Studio inference services (excluding batch calls) changed from hourly to per-minute. This generates multiple records per minute for an instance. Verify by checking the "consumption time", "service start time", or "service end time" fields.

The 'generating' bill status

The Overview of Monthly Bill page shows up-to-date charges. The final bill for a month becomes available after 12:00 on the 2nd of the following month. Before then, the status shows Being billed as the system is still accumulating charges.

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