This topic describes the billing methods, billable items, and billing rules for Alibaba Cloud CDN.
If the Business Type parameter is set to DCDN when you add a domain name to Alibaba Cloud CDN, you are billed for the domain name based on the billing rules of Dynamic Content Delivery Network (DCDN). You can log on to the DCDN console to view and manage domain names that are accelerated by DCDN.
Bills for Alibaba Cloud CDN are generated 3 to 4 hours after each billing cycle ends.
By default, pay-by-data-transfer meters the amount of outbound data transfer on points of presence (POPs) and pay-by-peak-bandwidth meters the peak bandwidth on POPs.
The following figure shows the procedure of using Alibaba Cloud CDN.
Billing methods
Alibaba Cloud CDN supports the pay-as-you-go billing method, which is the default billing method. You can use resource plans to offset fees of commonly used resources.
Pay-as-you-go: You are charged for the actual usage of each billable item. Fees are deducted when resources are consumed. This billing method is ideal for scenarios in which you cannot accurately predict resource usage.
Resource plans (subscription): Resource plans use the subscription billing method, and provide savings on the costs of individual billable items. Resources are consumed before fees are offset by resource plans. Resource plans are ideal for scenarios in which you can accurately predict resource usage.
The subscription billing method is more cost-effective than the pay-as-you-go billing method.
If your usage exceeds the capacity of the resource plans, the overages are billed based on the pay-as-you-go billing method and are included in the bills. We recommend that you purchase resource plans based on the services that you need and the estimated amount of resource usage. For more information, see Guidelines for choosing resource plans.
Billable items
Alibaba Cloud CDN generates bills for basic services and value-added services. The following figure shows the billable items.
Basic services (required): You can choose between pay-by-data-transfer and pay-by-bandwidth. For more information, see Billing of basic services.
Value-added services (optional): You can use one or more value-added services, such as HTTPS requests for static content and QUIC requests. For more information, see Billing of value-added services.
Billing cycles
The following table describes the billing cycles of Alibaba Cloud CDN.
Billing cycle | Bill release time | Billable item |
Hour | You are charged on an hourly basis. A bill is issued about 3 to 4 hours after the end of a billing cycle. The time when bills are issued is determined by the system. |
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Day | You are charged on a daily basis. The bill of the current day is issued around 04:00 on the next day. The time when bills are issued is determined by the system. | Basic services. For more information, see Pay-by-peak-bandwidth. |
Billable regions
The data transfer fee is calculated based on the unit price for the billable region where the data transfer is generated. Alibaba Cloud CDN has deployed sufficient redundant POPs in each billable region to ensure that each POP belongs only to one billable region.
Billable regions are listed in the following table. For more information about the distribution of main POPs, see POP distribution.
Billable region | Abbreviation | Region/Country |
Chinese mainland | CN | Regions in the Chinese mainland are in the same billable region. |
North America | NA | United States |
Europe | EU | Ukraine, UK, France, Netherlands, Italy, Sweden, Germany, and Spain |
Asia Pacific 1 | AP1 | Hong Kong (China), Japan, Singapore, Thailand, Philippines, and Malaysia |
Asia Pacific 2 | AP2 | Indonesia, India , Republic of Korea, and Pakistan |
Asia Pacific 3 | AP3 | Australia |
Middle East and Africa | MEAA | Türkiye, UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, Nigeria, and South Africa |
South America | SA | Brazil |
Pricing
For more information about the pricing of each billable item, visit the Alibaba Cloud CDN pricing page.
For more information about the pricing of resource plans, visit the resource plan buy page.
Outbound data transfer plans
Data transfer plans can be used to offset data transfer fees. Buy Now
We recommend that you choose resource plans based on the features and services that you want to use, and your business volume. For more information, see Overview, Guidelines for choosing resource plans, and Rules for applying resource plans.
Alibaba Cloud CDN outbound data transfer plans are applied only when the pay-by-data-transfer metering method is used. Otherwise, the data transfer plans are suspended until you switch back to the pay-by-data-transfer metering method. For more information about how to change the metering method, see Change the metering method.
References
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Billable items and billing methodsBilling of basic servicesBilling of value-added servicesChange the metering methodPricing
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OverviewGuidelines for choosing resource plansRules for applying resource plansQuery the details of resource plansConfigure alertsMoney-back guarantees
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MoreOverdue paymentsQuery resource usageQuery billsConfigure high bill alertsFAQ about billing