Pre-purchase information
What are resource plans and which scenarios are suitable for purchasing them?
A resource plan provides a fixed amount of resource at pay-as-you-go rates. Resource plans are suitable for storage and data transfer services in the following scenario: You have a clear budget, are willing to commit to using a specific amount of resources at lower costs, and want to ensure resource scalability.
When do purchased resource plans take effect?
Most resource plans take effect immediately after purchase. Some products' resource plans support setting a specific effective time, such as Storage Capacity Unit, GA resource plan, ALB resource plan, etc.
You can use the resource plan to offset only fees generated after your purchase. Overdue payments cannot be offset by using the resource plan.
Do resource plans support cross-account offsetting?
In the enterprise financial management model, cross-account sharing is supported for reserved instance and Storage Capacity Unit. Other resource plans do not currently support this feature.
The enterprise finance feature supports establishing finance trusteeship relationships between Alibaba Cloud accounts. After establishing a finance trusteeship relationship, you can share reserved instance and Storage Capacity Unit from the root account to offset the usage of pay-as-you-go cloud resource instances in member accounts.
How can I avoid pay-as-you-go bills after purchasing a resource plan?
When a resource plan expires or exceeds its capacity, it will switch to pay-as-you-go billing, which generates pay-as-you-go bills.
For total-volume resource plans, avoid exceeding capacity: To prevent exceeding the resource plan capacity, you should set up balance alerts. Once you receive a balance alert notification, you should purchase a new resource plan as soon as possible to avoid switching to pay-as-you-go billing after exceeding capacity, which would incur additional fees.
Renew before expiration: If you want to continue using the resource plan after it expires, you can choose to renew the resource plan. For resource plans that do not support renewal, you should purchase a new resource plan before the current one expires.
Stack purchase resource plans with configurable effective times: If you stack purchase resource plans with configurable effective times (such as SCU), ensure that the specified effective time is not later than the expiration time of the currently offsetting resource plan. This ensures that the new resource plan takes effect immediately after the current resource plan expires, avoiding any gap period that would result in pay-as-you-go billing.
Resource plan consumption and troubleshooting
How can I check if my purchased resource plan is being applied?
Navigate to the Resource Plans page.
In the Resource Dimension section, select Resource Plan, and then click the Usage Details tab. Enter the Resource Plan Instance ID, Offset Instance ID, and other information, and click Search to view the offset status of your purchased resource plan.
Why am I still receiving pay-as-you-go bills after purchasing a resource plan?
A resource plan may fail to offset the fees for pay-as-you-go resources due to the following reasons:
Resource plan does not match usage scenario
Resource plans must be used in their applicable regions and services. For example, if you purchase an OSS storage plan for the China (Hangzhou) region, you cannot apply the resource plan to offset the OSS storage fees generated in other regions.
Resource plans must be used to offset specific billable items, such as storage capacity, traffic, and API calls. For example, you can use an OSS storage plan to offset only storage fees. Traffic and API calls are billed on a pay-as-you-go basis.
Resource plan is not effective or has expired
Activation delay: A newly purchased resource plan might not have taken effect yet. Check if the effective time of the resource plan is later than the consumption time of the resource being offset (you can log on to the Bill Details page to check the consumption time of the resource being offset) to confirm whether the resource plan has started offsetting fees.
The resource plan expires. If a resource plan expires, the system automatically calculates fees on a pay-as-you-go basis.
Resource plan quota is insufficient
Usage exceeds quota: When the resource plan quota is exhausted (such as when a 50GB traffic plan is used up), the excess will be billed on a pay-as-you-go basis.
Multiple resource plan priority: When multiple resource plans can offset the same service (small, scattered resource plans), the system may prioritize offsetting with smaller resource plans, resulting in some subsequent resource plans not being fully utilized. The system offset logic is as follows:
Specificity priority principle: Priority is given to resource plans with more specific applicable scope and stricter conditions.
Time effectiveness priority principle: For the same type of resource plans, priority is given to offsetting quotas that are close to their validity period.
To avoid partial non-offsetting issues caused by scattered resource plan quotas, you should plan the purchase amount and validity period of resource plans reasonably. You can improve resource usage efficiency by merging purchases or adjusting validity period distribution, or set resource plan balance alerts to adjust usage strategies promptly based on notifications.
Configuration does not meet resource plan requirements
Specific resource plans must be associated with other resources before the resource plans can take effect. For example, you must associate an ApsaraVideo VOD data transfer plan with an accelerated domain name that uses the pay-by-data-transfer metering method. Otherwise, the resource plan cannot be used to offset fees.
A service is not used. A resource plan is used to offset fees when fees are generated for a service. If an API call is not made or a feature is not used, fees are not generated, and the resource plan is not applied.
Troubleshoot your issue based on the preceding descriptions. To learn more about the details of your purchased resource plans, see Query resource plan usage.
Why do I still have overdue payments after purchasing a resource plan?
If you still have overdue payments after purchasing a resource plan, it is usually due to the following reasons:
Your pay-as-you-go cloud resource instance generates usage for multiple billable items, but you only purchased resource plans for some of these items.
The region of the resource plan is different from the region where fees are generated.
Your resource plan capacity quota is insufficient, and the actual usage exceeds the capacity limit of the resource plan.
Billing system delay: After a resource plan takes effect, it automatically offsets the usage fees of corresponding resources, but there is a delay in the current Alibaba Cloud billing system. For example, if a resource plan takes effect at 09:00:00 and you receive an overdue bill at 10:00:00, this may be because the bill was generated before 09:00:00.
How am I charged after exceeding the resource plan quota?
After you purchase a resource plan, the system prioritizes deducting from your resource plan quota based on your actual usage. After exceeding the resource plan quota, you are charged on a pay-as-you-go basis according to your actual usage. If you exceed the quota by a significant amount, it is recommended that you upgrade your resource plan specifications or purchase multiple resource plans to stack them.
Can I purchase a resource plan to offset existing overdue payments?
No. Resource plans can only offset new usage generated after purchasing the resource plan. For overdue payments generated before purchasing the resource plan, you can only clear the debt by making a payment.
Resource plan lifecycle management
Why do resource plans and subscription instances purchased at the same time have different expiration dates?
Subscription instance: This is equivalent to purchasing a physical device. To compensate for creation and preparation time, we offer you free usage for the day of purchase.
Resource plan: This is equivalent to purchasing a discount coupon. Its validity period is strictly calculated based on the purchase duration, with no additional time given.
Suppose you place an order on June 29 at 15:30, purchasing both with a validity period of 1 month.
Item | Subscription instance (first day free) | Resource plan (no first day free) |
Product nature | Physical resource (such as server) | Usage offset quota |
Billing starts | Next day | Immediate effect (rounded according to rules) |
Final expiration |
|
|
Why do some of my resource plans take effect at the hour mark while others take effect at midnight?
This is normal behavior, automatically determined by the billing cycle of the cloud service that the resource plan offsets. You do not need to determine this yourself.
The purpose is to ensure that the resource plan can immediately cover your first expense after purchase.
When offsetting billing items with an [hourly] billing cycle:
The resource plan takes effect at the hour mark.
For example: If you purchase at
15:30, the resource plan will take effect from15:00to offset bills generated between15:00 - 16:00.
When offsetting billing items with a [daily] billing cycle:
The resource plan takes effect from midnight of the current day.
For example: If you purchase on
June 29 at 15:30, the resource plan will take effect fromJune 29 at 00:00to offset bills for the entire day ofJune 29.
What happens when a resource plan exceeds its validity period?
If you have other resource plans that can be used for offsetting, the system will continue to offset using those resource plans. If you do not have any other resource plans in use, pay-as-you-go bills will be generated (i.e., billing based on actual usage).
What should I do when a resource plan is about to expire or has expired?
Before a resource plan expires: If you want to continue using a resource plan with higher discount benefits, you can choose to renew the resource plan. If you only want to offset using the remaining quota within the current resource plan's validity period, no action is required.
After a resource plan expires: The expiration of a resource plan does not affect the use of pay-as-you-go cloud resource instances. If you want to continue using a resource plan with higher discount benefits, you can choose to purchase a new resource plan. If you do not want to continue using a resource plan, no action is required. If you no longer use the resource, release the instance. Otherwise, pay-as-you-go fees will be generated.
Do resource plans support renewal?
Resource plans with hourly/daily commitment periods support renewal operations. For resource plans that do not support renewal, you can purchase a new one.
After a resource plan expires, it cannot be renewed, upgraded, or stacked.
Do resource plans support unsubscription, and how is the refund amount calculated?
Some resource plans support unsubscription. To confirm whether your current resource plan supports unsubscription, go to the Resource Unsubscription page, switch to the Resource Plan tab, and check the instances available for unsubscription (if your purchased resource plan is not listed, it does not meet the unsubscription conditions).
To unsubscribe, you can follow the unsubscription operation guide to unsubscribe from the resource plan.
The refund amount is calculated as follows:
Full refund for unused resource plans within five days: Some types of resource plans can be fully refunded if they have zero usage within 5 days of purchase.
Partial refund: Applicable to resource plans that have been partially used but still have remaining unconsumed amounts. Refund amount = Order payable amount - Consumed amount, where the consumed amount includes linear calculation based on usage for total-volume resource plans and calculation based on actual usage duration for periodic usage resource plans. For specific calculation rules, see Unsubscription rule description.
What should I do if my resource plan expires with unused quota?
When purchasing a resource plan, you need to select a validity period. After the validity period, the resource plan becomes void and cannot be refunded or continued to be used. We recommend that you pay attention to the resource plan validity period (expiration time) and set resource plan balance alerts.
What should I do if I purchased the wrong resource plan?
If you need to change your resource plan, first unsubscribe from the resource plan, then go to the cloud product's resource plan purchase page to select and purchase a suitable resource plan based on your needs.