Alibaba Cloud billing methods and cost optimization - Expenses and Costs

Alibaba Cloud billing has two parts: billing items (what you pay for) and billing methods (how you pay).

Total cost = resource usage per billing item × unit price. Choose the right billing method to control your cloud costs.

Billing Methods

Alibaba Cloud offers pay-as-you-go and subscription billing. Subscription includes subscription instances, Savings Plans, and resource plans.

Billing Method		Definition	Features
Pay-as-you-go		Use resources first, then pay. Pay hourly or by the second.	Flexible to use, release anytime.
Subscription	Subscription	Prepaid, get stable service for a fixed period.	Exclusive resources, more cost-effective than pay-as-you-go.
	Savings Plan	You receive a greater discount compared to pay-as-you-go pricing by making a spending commitment for a fixed term.	Offset costs for different instances under the same product.
	Resource plan	Pre-purchase a fixed amount of usage to offset pay-as-you-go resource usage (such as storage capacity, network traffic).	Directly offset resource usage.

Pay-as-you-go

Pay-as-you-go is a post-paid billing method. You are charged based on resource runtime, data processed, or request count. Resources are available on demand without prior planning, but carry a higher unit price.

Pay-as-you-go resources are billed per second, and billing details are generated hourly or daily. The monthly bill is issued on the 3rd of the following month.

Note the following when you use the pay-as-you-go method:

Hourly billing data may be delayed.
Billing stops when you release the resources.
When you release a primary instance, verify that associated resources (Elastic IP Addresses, snapshots) are also released. Use cost alerts and budget management tools to monitor expenses.

Subscription Instances

Subscription instances offer lower unit prices when you prepay for a fixed duration. Longer durations provide greater discounts. Resources are immediately available for exclusive use, and costs are predictable.

Note the following when you use subscription instances:

Resources stop and data is deleted upon expiration. Enable auto-renewal to avoid interruptions.
Refund amounts are calculated based on usage duration and applicable discounts.

Savings Plan

A Savings Plan provides discounted prices for pay-as-you-go resources. You commit to a minimum hourly spend for 1, 3, or 5 years to offset pay-as-you-go bills.

Savings Plans provide significant discounts while maintaining pay-as-you-go flexibility.

Note the following when you use a Savings Plan:

Savings Plans do not support refunds. Confirm the offset scope before purchase.
You are charged the committed amount regardless of actual usage.
Usage exceeding the committed amount is billed at standard pay-as-you-go rates.

Resource Plans

A resource plan is a prepaid method that automatically offsets usage at prices lower than pay-as-you-go.

Resource plans are generally divided into two types:

Total volume: You define total usage at purchase. The allowance decreases over the validity period and resets to zero upon expiration.
Periodic usage: The allowance resets each period (hourly, daily, or monthly). Unused portions do not carry over.

Note the following when you use resource plans:

Allowances reset to zero upon expiration and cannot be carried over or extended.
Resource plans offset only specific products and billing items. Confirm the offset scope before purchase.
Some resource plans require specific conditions to take effect.
Cancellation support varies by product.

What are the differences between Savings Plans and resource plans?

A Savings Plan, which is based on a committed spending amount, focuses on how much you spend per hour. It applies to compute resources, such as ECS, ECI, and ApsaraDB RDS, is flexible, and does not limit you to specific instance types.

A resource plan, which is based on a committed usage quantity, focuses on how much of a resource you use. It applies to storage and network resources, such as OSS storage plans and CDN data transfer plans, for which you purchase a specific number of gigabytes or offset counts.

Billing items

A billing item is the smallest metering unit for resources and services. Each billing item corresponds to an independently metered and priced resource consumption type with defined metrics, billing cycles, and unit prices.

Billing items are typically divided into two categories:

Basic billing items: Charges based on compute, storage, and network usage. Examples: instance type fees (ECS), storage fees (disks, OSS), data transfer fees (outbound Internet traffic, CDN), request fees (API calls), and compute fees (CPU/memory duration).
Value-added billing items: Fees for advanced capabilities such as image processing, transfer acceleration, and software subscriptions.

Billing items combine with billing methods to generate your bills. Final cost = usage of each billing item × unit price.

Choose a Billing Method

Choose a billing method based on your resource usage patterns.

Stable operations suit prepaid methods to lock in costs. Fluctuating operations suit pay-as-you-go for elasticity. Combine methods to balance cost and flexibility.

Stable Operations: Lock in Costs, Prefer Subscription Instances

Applies to long-running systems with fixed configurations (enterprise websites, core databases). Multi-year purchases receive higher discounts.

Elastic Operations: Flexible Cost Reduction, Recommend Savings Plans

Applies to scenarios with frequent configuration changes (iterating Internet applications, growing SaaS services). Balances discounts with upgrade/downgrade flexibility.

Fluctuating Operations: Elastic Response, Layered Cost Reduction

Applies to periodic load fluctuations (daytime peaks/nighttime lows, busy weekdays/idle weekends):

Base load: Use a Savings Plan to lock in costs.
Fluctuating portion: Use the pay-as-you-go method for on-demand scaling.

This balances cost optimization and resource efficiency, avoiding overpayment for peak loads or idle resources.

Burst Operations: Start and Stop on Demand, Zero Idle Costs

Applies to unpredictable traffic surges (sales promotions, marketing campaigns, hot spot events). Scale out before events and release resources immediately afterward — no prior planning, no idle costs.

Exploratory Operations: Flexible Experimentation, Pay on Demand

Applies to early-stage projects with uncertain usage (MVP validation, technology selection, POC testing):

Use pay-as-you-go. Start resources as needed, release when finished, and pay only for actual usage.
After validation, migrate to subscription instances or a Savings Plan for lower costs.

Storage and Data Transfer: Batch Purchase, Automatic Offset

Applies to stable, predictable usage (log storage, data backup, CDN data transfer). Estimate average monthly usage from historical consumption and purchase a matching resource plan. Offsets apply automatically.

Combination Usage Suggestions

In practice, most operations combine multiple billing methods:

Core stable load: Use subscription instances or a Savings Plan to lock in base costs.
Elastic scaling portion: Use the pay-as-you-go method to handle peak demands.
Storage and data transfer: Use resource plans for bulk purchases to get discounts.

FAQ

Pay-as-you-go

Why do I keep incurring fees on my account?

Pay-as-you-go resources are running on your account, possibly in a rarely used region or created by another account user. Check your resources:

View the Bill Overview page. Select a billing month to analyze your consumption by product.
Log on to the Alibaba Cloud Management Console. On the Overview page, check your cloud resources in all regions. Pay special attention to regions that you do not use often.

I created an ECS instance but never logged on to use it. Why am I still incurring fees?

Pay-as-you-go billing starts when a resource is created, regardless of login status. To stop charges, use the cost-saving shutdown feature or release the resource.

I have released my pay-as-you-go resources. Why am I still incurring fees and receiving bills?

Shutting down a resource does not always stop billing. If fees continue after deletion, possible reasons include:

Associated resources were not released: You may have released only the primary instance, such as an ECS instance, but its associated resources, such as an Elastic IP Address (EIP) or snapshots, were not released. These associated resources continue to incur fees.
Billing delay: Bills for pay-as-you-go resources are generated periodically, for example, on an hourly basis. After you release a resource, the bill for the last billing cycle is still generated. For example, if you release a resource at 10:08, the bill for the 10:00 to 11:00 billing cycle is generated after 11:00.

Subscription

Which scenarios are suitable for purchasing subscription instances?

Subscriptions commit you to specific resource specifications for a fixed period at lower prices than pay-as-you-go. Resources shut down upon expiration. Best for clear budget planning and stable demand (e.g., 24/7 web services).

Savings Plan

Which scenarios are suitable for purchasing a savings plan?

Variable resource usage: If you want to use ECS resources flexibly, for example, by upgrading instance types or system disk configurations before sales promotions and downgrading them afterward, each upgrade, downgrade, or new resource creation after a refund and release incurs hidden costs. These accumulated costs increase the overall cost of a subscription. A savings plan combined with the pay-as-you-go billing method eliminates hidden costs when you switch resources.
Different resource demands at different times: For example, Department A uses ECS during the day and Department B uses ECI at night. With the subscription method, nearly half of the resource time is wasted. However, a savings plan combined with the pay-as-you-go billing method lets you share benefits. The savings plan can offset pay-as-you-go fees for both ECS and ECI, which significantly reduces total costs after the switch.

What are the advantages of a savings plan compared to subscription and resource plans?

A savings plan offers greater flexibility in resource usage while providing significant discounts.

Compared to a subscription, a savings plan used with the pay-as-you-go billing method offers high flexibility. It lets you adjust resources as needed without having to lock in resources in advance.
Compared to resource plans, a savings plan has broader offsetting capabilities. This improves resource usage flexibility and cost-effectiveness.

I want to purchase an ECS savings plan. Does the system provide recommended purchase plans?

If you have purchased ECS or ECI pay-as-you-go resources, go to the Savings Plan Purchase Plan Calculation page to view recommended configurations and evaluate suitable purchase plans. Enter the savings plan type, subscription duration, and payment method. The system automatically calculates optimization suggestions and the hourly committed spend. It also provides expected savings for your reference.

Can I continue to use the free trial after purchasing a savings plan? What if I want to use the purchased portion after 3 months?

After you purchase a savings plan, you can continue your free trial. The free trial applies first, and the savings plan offsets any usage that exceeds the trial quota.

After a savings plan takes effect, you are charged the committed amount even if you have no usage to offset. If you want to start using the savings plan after 3 months, you can specify the effective time when you purchase the plan.

How can I view the fees saved by a savings plan?

Go to the Savings Plan Overview page to view your purchased savings plans and their usage. This includes the saved amount, savings plan usage details, usage rate overview, and coverage rate overview. Based on the current usage and coverage rates, you can upgrade or downgrade the committed spend of your savings plan.

Can I set a stop time after a savings plan takes effect?

No, you cannot. A savings plan requires you to commit to a certain amount of spend over a period of time in exchange for lower prices.

Do savings plans support unsubscription? If so, how is the refund amount calculated?

Currently, savings plans do not support unsubscription.

I purchased a savings plan. Why am I still receiving pay-as-you-go bills?

After purchasing a Savings Plan, you may still receive pay-as-you-go bills if your instances fall outside the plan scope, offsetting rules limit coverage, or the plan has not yet taken effect. Troubleshoot as follows:

Savings plan scope limitations: Make sure that the purchased savings plan applies to the Alibaba Cloud service and specific billable items that you are using.
Offsetting rule limitations: Understand the offsetting logic of the savings plan. This includes the offset order and scope. For example, compute-optimized ECS instances are limited to specific regions and instance families.
Effective time limitations: Check the effective time of the savings plan to make sure that it has started to offset fees.

If issues persist, review the savings plan documentation or contact Alibaba Cloud customer service.

Resource Plans

Which scenarios are suitable for purchasing resource plans?

Resource plans offer discounted prices when you purchase a fixed amount of usage upfront. They suit storage and traffic products with clear budget planning and predictable consumption, while ensuring resource usage flexibility.

I purchased a resource plan. Why am I still receiving pay-as-you-go bills?

After you purchase a resource plan, if your pay-as-you-go bills are not offset, it may be for one of the following reasons:

Resource plan scope limitations: The resource plan may not offset fees generated by pay-as-you-go services. Confirm whether the purchased resource plan applies to the Alibaba Cloud service and specific billable items that you are using.
Resource plan effective time: A newly purchased resource plan may not have taken effect due to billing delays. Check the effective time of the resource plan and the billing time of the current bill. Confirm whether the resource plan has started to offset fees.
Items not offset by the resource plan: Some usage may not be offset by resource plans. For example, different resource plans cannot be used to offset each other. In addition, specific resource plans can offset only specific services. For example, a transcoding plan cannot be used to offset storage usage.
Configuration requirements not met: Some resource plans, such as ApsaraVideo VOD data transfer plans, take effect only if specific conditions are met. For example, an accelerated domain name must be configured and the billing method for the acceleration service must be pay-by-data-transfer. If these conditions are not met, the resource plan may not offset fees.

If issues persist, review the resource plan documentation or contact Alibaba Cloud customer service.

Do resource plans support unsubscription? If so, how is the refund amount calculated?

Whether a resource plan supports unsubscription depends on the rules of the specific product.

Resource plans that support unsubscription fall into two scenarios: full refund for unused resources and partial refund.

For partial refunds, the refund amount is calculated as follows: Refund amount = Order payable amount - Consumed amount. The consumed amount is calculated based on the following rules:

For total usage resource plans, the consumed amount is linearly prorated based on usage.
For periodic usage resource plans, the consumed amount is calculated based on the actual usage duration.

Unsubscription Rules.