VPCs are free. Charges apply to peering connections, traffic mirroring, flow logs, and other Alibaba Cloud resources created within a VPC.
Overview
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Billable features: VPC peering connections, flow logs, traffic mirroring.
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Public preview (free): IP Address Manager (IPAM), high-availability virtual IP addresses (HaVip).
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Free features:
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VPCs, vSwitches, secondary CIDR blocks, reserved CIDR blocks
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DNS hostnames, DHCP options sets
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Route tables, prefix lists
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Shared VPCs
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ClassicLink, gateway endpoints
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IPv4 gateways, network ACLs
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Creating Alibaba Cloud resources in a VPC or generating storage and data transfer traffic incurs charges. Each product has its own billing documentation.
VPC peering connections
Intra-region connections: Free regardless of account ownership.
Inter-region connections: Outbound traffic incurs data transfer fees charged by Cloud Data Transfer (CDT).
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Pricing depends on source region, destination region, and link type. Choose from two service tiers:
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Platinum (99.995% SLA): Best for latency-sensitive workloads such as stock trading, voice calls, video conferencing, and real-time gaming.
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Gold (99.95% SLA): Best for workloads tolerant of variable link quality, such as data synchronization and file transfers.
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Billing cycle: Hourly. Switching link types within a billing cycle applies the higher service tier price for that hour.
Pricing
Data transfer pricing is symmetric: Region A to Region B costs the same as Region B to Region A.
Gold tier
Inbound region | ||||||
Outbound region | Chinese mainland | Asia Pacific | Europe | North America | South America | Middle East |
Chinese mainland | USD 0.072/GB | USD 0.80/GB | USD 0.80/GB | USD 0.80/GB | USD 0.80/GB | USD 0.80/GB |
Asia Pacific | USD 0.80/GB | USD 0.08/GB | USD 0.08/GB | USD 0.08/GB | USD 0.38/GB | USD 0.38/GB |
Europe | USD 0.80/GB | USD 0.08/GB | USD 0.02/GB | USD 0.05/GB | USD 0.38/GB | USD 0.38/GB |
North America | USD 0.80/GB | USD 0.08/GB | USD 0.05/GB | USD 0.02/GB | USD 0.38/GB | USD 0.38/GB |
South America | USD 0.80/GB | USD 0.38/GB | USD 0.38/GB | USD 0.38/GB | USD 0.38/GB | USD 0.38/GB |
Middle East | USD 0.80/GB | USD 0.38/GB | USD 0.38/GB | USD 0.38/GB | USD 0.38/GB | USD 0.38/GB |
Platinum tier
Inbound region | ||||||
Outbound region | Chinese mainland | Asia Pacific | Europe | North America | South America | Middle East |
Chinese mainland | USD 0.108/GB | USD 1.20/GB | USD 1.20/GB | USD 1.20/GB | USD 1.20/GB | USD 1.20/GB |
Asia Pacific | USD 1.20/GB | USD 0.12/GB | USD 0.12/GB | USD 0.12/GB | USD 0.57/GB | USD 0.57/GB |
Europe | USD 1.20/GB | USD 0.12/GB | USD 0.03/GB | USD 0.075/GB | USD 0.57/GB | USD 0.57/GB |
North America | USD 1.20/GB | USD 0.12/GB | USD 0.075/GB | USD 0.03/GB | USD 0.57/GB | USD 0.57/GB |
South America | USD 1.20/GB | USD 0.57/GB | USD 0.57/GB | USD 0.57/GB | USD 0.57/GB | USD 0.57/GB |
Middle East | USD 1.20/GB | USD 0.57/GB | USD 0.57/GB | USD 0.57/GB | USD 0.57/GB | USD 0.57/GB |
Flow logs
Cost components
Flow log costs include log generation fees, Simple Log Service (SLS) fees, and NIS Traffic Analyzer processing and storage fees.
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Log generation:
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Billed hourly. Bills are generated 3 to 4 hours after each cycle ends (may vary).
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Tiered pricing based on accumulated monthly log volume per region. Each account has a 5 GB monthly free quota per region.
Monthly usage
Price (USD/GB)
0 TB to 10 TB (inclusive)
0.37
10 TB to 30 TB (inclusive)
0.185
30 TB to 50 TB (inclusive)
0.074
Greater than 50 TB
0.037
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Simple Log Service: Charges apply after flow logs are delivered to SLS, including ingestion and storage fees.
SLS offers two billing methods: pay-by-ingested-data and pay-by-feature. Creating a flow log with a new Logstore in the VPC console defaults to pay-by-feature.
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NIS Traffic Analyzer: Charges apply after delivering flow logs to NIS Traffic Analyzer, including analysis processing and storage fees.
Examples
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Example 1
You enable a flow log in a region on September 1, 2022, 00:00:00. It delivers 3 GB of logs to SLS by October 1, 2022, 00:00:00.
The 5 GB monthly free quota covers log generation. You pay SLS fees only.
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Example 2
You enable flow logs in China (Shanghai) on September 1, 2022, 00:00:00. 100 GB of logs are delivered to SLS by October 1, 2022, 00:00:00.
Log generation cost: (100 - 5) × USD 0.37 = USD 35.15. Total: USD 35.15 + SLS fees.
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Example 3
You enable flow logs in China (Beijing) on September 1, 2022, 00:00:00. 60 TB of logs are delivered to SLS by October 1, 2022, 00:00:00.
Log generation cost (tiered pricing):
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0 to 10 TB (inclusive): (10 × 1024 - 5) × USD 0.37 = USD 3,786.95
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10 TB to 30 TB (inclusive): 20 × 1024 × USD 0.185 = USD 3,788.8
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30 TB to 50 TB (inclusive): 20 × 1024 × USD 0.074 = USD 1,515.52
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Greater than 50 TB: 10 × 1024 × USD 0.037 = USD 378.88
Total log generation cost: 3,786.95 + 3,788.8 + 1,515.52 + 378.88 = USD 9,470.15. Total: USD 9,470.15 + SLS fees.
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Overdue payments
Enable low balance alerts to receive SMS or email notifications when your account balance falls below the threshold.
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Service continues without suspension for 15 days after payment becomes overdue. Instances keep running.
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Failing to pay within 15 days triggers automatic suspension. Flow log operations are blocked, and billing stops.
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Topping up within 15 days after suspension automatically restores service.
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Failing to pay within 15 days after suspension releases flow log instances automatically. Instance configurations and data are permanently deleted.
Traffic mirroring
Cost components
Traffic mirroring cost = Instance fee + Traffic processing fee
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Instance fee = Number of traffic mirror sources that have traffic mirror sessions enabled × Active duration of the traffic mirror sessions (in hours) × Unit price of instance fee (USD/source/hour)
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Traffic processing fee = Total amount of mirrored data (GB) × Unit price of traffic processing fee (USD/GB)
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Billable item |
Unit price |
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Instance fee |
0.014 USD/unit/hour |
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Traffic processing fee |
0.007 USD/GB |
Billing rules
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Traffic processing fees: waived until March 31, 2027.
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Instance fees: charged hourly per active traffic mirror source. Partial hours round up to full hours.
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Multiple sessions per source: instance fee charged once. Active duration is cumulative. For example, 5 hours in session 1 + 4 hours in session 2 = 9 billable hours.
Example
Five ENIs in a VPC run traffic mirror sessions for 30 days, 24 hours/day. Total mirrored data: 20 GB.
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Instance fee = 5 × 30 × 24 × 0.014 = 50.4 USD
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Traffic processing fee = 20 × 0.007 = 0.14 USD
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Total traffic mirroring fee = 50.4 + 0.14 = 50.54 USD
Overdue payments
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Traffic mirroring operates normally for 15 days after payment becomes overdue.
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Failing to pay within 15 days suspends traffic mirroring. You cannot operate on traffic mirroring instances.
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Topping up within 15 days after suspension automatically restores service. Suspended mirror sessions resume.
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Failing to top up within 15 days after suspension deletes mirror session instances. Instance configurations and data are permanently deleted.